Humble Beginnings for Nicolette, Gilder and Lyle Despite 1-Shot Lead

After the first round of the U.S. Open, the three players tied for the lead included a guy whose hands were so swollen from the heat that he felt as if he was holding a baseball bat instead of a driver, another who had been playing so badly he thought about giving up golf to become a garbage collector, and the current Masters champion, who described his previous play in the Open as “a lot of trash.”

The weather was hot and the air was heavy Thursday at The Country Club, where Bob Gilder with his swollen hands, Mike Nicolette with his choice of careers safe for at least the weekend and Sandy Lyle with a new sense of direction, shot 3-under-par 68s and led five others by one shot.

Can they keep it up? Well, Gilder, who hasn’t won in five years, didn’t sound too impressed by his score.

“Three-under’s not all that great for a first round,” he said.

Few people would probably give a plugged nickel for Nicolette’s chances, but money is his object.

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “My bank account is real low. It’s not week to week, it’s day to day.”

Nicolette said he could always get out of golf. “I could be a garbage man or something,” he said.

It could all work out, though. If Nicolette plays badly and if Lyle plays as he did in his only other U.S. Open, when he shot 86-82 and missed the cut at Oakmont, Pa., in 1983, then maybe Nicolette can carry out Lyle’s trash.

At 69 and immediately behind this unlikely grouping of leaders were Seve Ballesteros, Paul Azinger, Larry Mize, Dick Mast and last year’s champion, Scott Simpson.

Three others were tied at 70: Lanny Wadkins, Craig Stadler and Curtis Strange, who had an eagle 3 on the 527-yard 14th hole. Nineteen pros and amateur Bill Mayfair shot par or better in the field of 156.

Gilder and Nicolette finished their rounds under a blazing sun in temperatures hovering around 92 degrees. They were through much earlier than Lyle, who birdied No. 18 in a light breeze just before 7 p.m., more than five hours after he had teed off.

And when Lyle teed off, he used an iron most of the time. The result?

“I had some idea of where the ball was going today,” he said.

Unfortunately for Lyle, it wasn’t always on the fairway. He missed 10 of them but saved himself with a bit of luck on the back nine.

“I squeezed as much out of this round as I possibly could,” Lyle said.

Lyle was at par until he holed a 25-yard chip shot for a birdie on No. 11, perhaps the most difficult hole on the course. He got another birdie on the 185-yard, par-3 16th after a 7-iron got him within 20 feet.

Then Lyle took over a share of the lead when he birdied the 438-yard, par-4 18th. He used a 1-iron off the tee and sank a 15-footer.

No one since Jack Nicklaus in 1972 has won the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year, and no one has ever won golf’s four majors, known collectively as the modern Grand Slam, in the same year. At least, Lyle has a chance.

“It is possible,” he said. “I don’t fancy the odds, though.”

Nicklaus, a four-time U.S. Open champion, shot an un-fancy 74, the same as Tom Watson and Greg Norman. Watson was in good shape at 2 under par until he bogeyed No. 12, then double-bogeyed No. 13.

Gilder, a recovered victim of golf burnout, drank a lot of water during his round, but he couldn’t keep his hands from swelling up.

“They got puffy because of the heat,” he said. “When they’re like that, it feels like you’ve got a baseball bat in your hands instead of a golf grip.”

Gilder was the sixth-leading money winner in 1983, but he said he became disenchanted, and his game suffered. He was fined by PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman for criticizing the tour.

“I’d like to forget that if I could,” Gilder said. “I kind of got burned out, you might say. I got involved in some politics out here and I grew real disenchanted with the tour in particular because I couldn’t be honest when I talked, without being fined.”

Simpson and Ballesteros took different roads but wound up at the same score. Simpson missed just one fairway, and Ballesteros missed five. Simpson’s round included three birdies and a bogey, but Ballesteros had 3 bogeys, 5 birdies and saved pars at Nos. 16 and 18 when he drove into bunkers.

“I scrambled,” Ballesteros said.

More important to Ballesteros, he celebrated the return of his putting touch, which he said he lost when he took himself out of the Masters last year by three-putting on the first playoff hole.

“Since then, my putting has not been the strongest part of my game,” he said.

Before his victory last week at Westchester, Ballesteros changed his grip and moved his hands closer together when putting. That seemed to work. He saved his round Thursday with 11 one-putt holes.

“I really don’t know what will happen from now on,” Ballesteros said. “All I can tell you is I have a good feeling.’

Ballesteros said he is relieved something finally worked to improve his putting.

“I tried many things,” he said. “Sometimes you got it, sometimes you never got it.”

Mast, who has not finished higher than 52nd in his two previous Open appearances, earned a spot in the field here in the sectional qualifying at Bay Hill.

Mast lost his PGA card for the third time in 1979 and was forced off the tour after earning just $5,715. So, he became a full-time player on a mini-tour in Florida, called the Space Coast Tour. In six years, Mast won more than two dozen mini-tour events.

“I was a big fish in a little pond,” he said.

The big pond was still where Mast wanted to be, though, and he plotted a comeback.

“I always thought I could make it out here and I didn’t,” Mast said.

He regained his PGA playing privileges at the 1985 qualifying school in the fall at Palmaire Country Club in Sarasota, Fla.

Last year, Mast won more than $90,000, but he had not played well this year until the last two weeks, when he was seventh in the Kemper Open at Potomac, Md., and sixth in the Westchester at Rye, N.Y.