Golf : Are Today’s High-Paying Pro Tournaments a Threat to the Masters?

No more Masters?

It could happen, according to Hord Hardin, chairman of the Masters Tournament, if increased prize money from other tournaments lures players away from Augusta National, which remains steadfast against inflating its prize money through commercialism.

“You have to worry about it,” Hardin said.

“I just don’t believe the members of this club would want to continue if the only alternative was to get as much out of television as we could or to sandbag our patrons for every nickel, or to have hospitality houses all over the place,” Hardin said.

The Masters has a rare place in the world of sporting events. The tournament does not charge for parking. Cold drinks cost 50 cents, sandwiches $1. Sandwiches are wrapped in green paper so if a wrapper is blown to the ground, it won’t be so noticeable.

No hot dogs or hamburgers are on the menu because members consider smoke from grills as being offensive.

Not until 1983 did Augusta National allow players to use their own caddies during the Masters. Such traditions are very strong, but Hardin believes that tradition is being threatened.

Hardin is concerned about the amount of money title sponsors have brought to pro golf tournaments. There are eight other tournaments of at least $1 million in prize money this year.

“That escalation will be a very serious thing, not only for the other tournaments, but certainly for the so-called majors,” he said.

“In our case, it would be serious. I don’t visualize us having the Pizza Hut Masters.”

Hardin said he is concerned that at some point, players may skip the Masters if it were flanked by a pair of $5-million tournaments.

Larry Mize got $162,000 out of a purse of $867,100 last year for winning the Masters, and this year’s total purse is $1 million.

Tom Watson, a two-time Masters champion, said he thinks Hardin’s worries are unwarranted.

“The Masters is a career-making opportunity,” Watson said. “(The pros) are never going to give that up.

“I think any young player wants to play in the Masters. It’s not ‘How did you finish in the U.S. Open?’ It’s ‘Did you finish in the top 16 or the top eight of the PGA,’ and they say, ‘Yeah, I got in the Masters.’ ”

The 11th, 12th and 13th holes at the southeast tip of Augusta National may be the Masters’ three most difficult holes in succession.

They are known as ‘Amen Corner,’ because golfers often need some help there.

Jodie Mudd played those holes bogey, double-bogey, triple-bogey in the first round on his way to an 84. Dead Man’s Curve?

Remember the Brinks job? Now there is the links job.

It happened late Friday afternoon at Augusta Country Club, scene of birdies, bogeys and bandits. Two men armed with shotguns held up a concession stand worker at her booth out on the course.

They shot out a TV set to show they meant business, then took $14 from the cash register, $75 from the worker’s purse and ran off across a fairway.

Bernhard Langer is going home to Anhausan, West Germany, this week to see a doctor because of a back problem.

Depending on what he is told, Langer said there is a chance he won’t play again for six months.

Langer said he has a stress fracture in his back as well as a bulging disk, but he doesn’t know how they happened. All he knows is that he is hurting.

“Every morning I have pain,” he said.

The stress fracture first showed up in 1984 when specialists took X-rays of Langer’s back. Doctors told him he may have had the condition for 20 years.

Whatever the doctors order this week, Langer said he would certainly listen to them.

“I’d rather quit playing for six months or whatever it takes than play for two years and be crippled the rest of my life,” he said. “I think that’s an easy decision.”

The first AI Star Centinela Hospital Tournament begins Thursday at Rancho Park, which hasn’t had an LPGA tournament since 1980 when the Sunstar tournament was played there.

The new LPGA tournament is a $400,000 event, but title sponsor AI Star plans to raise the prize money to $500,000 in 1990. AI Star, a multinational corporation based in Tokyo, has committed to the tournament for three years.

Amy Alcott, who won the $500,000 Nabisco Dinah Shore last week, leads the field of the top 20 1987 money winners who will be trying to win the $60,000 first-place money.

The tournament benefits the Children’s Charity Fund at Centinela Hospital Medical Center.

Golf Notes

The second muscular dystrophy celebrity golf tournament, co-sponsored by ITT Cannon and Time Electronics, will begin at 11:30 a.m. Monday at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa. . . . The third NutraSweet tournament, a golf and tennis fund-raiser for diabetes research, is scheduled to be held Monday May 9 at Riviera Country Club. . . . Rick Reilly, 27, son of PGA vice president Pat Reilly, is the new head pro at Wilshire Country Club. Reilly replaced Frank Morey, who retired after 25 years at Wilshire. . . . Dave Marr has been named director of corporate development for the Pebble Beach Co., with emphasis on the Inn and Links at Spanish Bay.