Early Start Puts Price in Top Spot : A 67 in Sunshine Moves Him 1 Shot Ahead of Ballesteros

Nick Price, who was born in South Africa but reared in Southern Rhodesia, who travels on a British passport but lives in Orlando, Fla., stood up to the gusts blowing off the Irish Sea and moved in the direction of the British Open championship.

In the second round of the 117th Open, on an unusually clear but usually windy Friday, Price went around the Royal Lytham & St. Annes course with a 4-under-par 67 to lead Seve Ballesteros by one shot.

Price’s 36-hole total of 137 took the lead away from Ballesteros, who could do no better than a par 71 while playing in the afternoon, when the winds grew stronger and the course played tougher.

Three shots back of Price were Craig Stadler, who used a gift putter to shoot a 68, and defending champion Nick Faldo, who once again covered himself with sand on the 17th hole and lost two strokes over the last five holes but still managed a 69.

Alone in fifth place at 141 was Andy Bean, who got there by doing things completely backward. Bean shot a 70, playing the easier front nine at Royal Lytham in three over par, then knocking out the killer back nine with a 4-under-par 32.

“There were two different men on the course today,” Bean said.

There were also two different days on the course. One was a morning of gentle breezes. The other was an afternoon of swirling wind gusts.

After two trips along the railroad tracks, past the rows of two-story, red-brick houses and through the knee-deep rough, only five players in the field of 153 were able to break par.

Just eight in all were at par or better, and four were Americans--Stadler, Bean, Bob Tway and Fred Couples.

Tway and Couples, as well as Sandy Lyle, finished two rounds at par 142.

The cut was six strokes higher, and 71 players made it. Brad Faxon slipped from his first-round of 69 to 74 and is tied at 143 in a group of 10 that includes Don Pooley, Gary Koch and Chip Beck.

Jack Nicklaus, the three-time British Open winner who holds 18 major professional championships, made the cut with a second-round 70 and a 36-hole score of 145. Nicklaus was encouraged.

“If I shoot 67 tomorrow--where am I, three over par?--not too far back to have a chance on the last day.”

Curtis Strange has a slim chance. He came back from his 79 in the first round to shoot a 69 and make the cut by a shot.

“I certainly played better than yesterday,” Strange said.

Others did not. Two-time PGA Tour winner Steve Pate missed the cut at 158 after he took a quintuple-bogey 9 at No. 8.

Mark Calcavecchia, the Masters runner-up to Lyle, sprayed his way around to an 84 and finished with two double-bogeys (the first after a 65-yard drive on No. 14), a triple-bogey and two more bogeys.

Lee Trevino’s 74 for a 149 meant that he missed the cut, which was the first time he has done that in Europe in 20 years, counting European tour events and British Opens.

It was two-sweater weather for Bean, but Price never noticed. He was lucky enough to complete his round early, when the sun was still hot and the wind had not become as bothersome as Ballesteros found it to be late in the afternoon.

“Very tough out there, I think,” Ballesteros said. “The difference from the morning because of the wind was probably one shot.”

But the wind was not completely responsible for Price’s one-shot lead. The 31-year-old former Rhodesian Air Force member began dropping putts as if he were parachuting them into the hole.

He began with an eagle on No. 6 after his second shot, a 7-iron from 182 yards, landed on the green 35 feet from the cup. Price rolled in the putt for his eagle, then birdied the next hole, another par-5, when he reached the green in two.

When Price sank a 15-footer at No. 8 for another birdie, he moved ahead of Ballesteros, who had not yet begun to play.

Price gave a shot back with a bogey at No. 12 when he was distracted by a walkie-talkie at the tee and hit a short 2-iron.

“I should have stepped back,” Price said.

That, however, was a minor transgression compared to what Price did six years ago in the Open. In 1982 at Troon, Price led by three strokes with six holes to go but wound up losing to Tom Watson by a shot. Watson, already in the clubhouse, knew he had just accepted the silver trophy on a silver platter.

“I didn’t win this tournament,” Watson said at the time. “I had it handed to me.”

Price said he has not forgotten about losing that Open.

“If I ever forget about it, I’m a fool,” he said. “I learned a golden lesson then. I got ahead of myself. I didn’t think I could lose the championship.

“But I don’t try to look at it negatively at all. How many golfers at the age of 25 have the opportunity to win a major championship? It turned my life around. I knew I had the qualities to win a major. Maybe when I’m 50 years old and I haven’t won, then I’ll kick myself.”

The back nine here, which is played into the gusty wind, was much more generous than it was Thursday, when only two players shot better than par. Seven did it Friday, but Ballesteros wasn’t one of them.

He bogeyed No. 14, as he did Thursday. Ballesteros drove left, then hit a 6-iron into a bunker, chipped out to 20 feet and two-putted. But Ballesteros also saved par twice, on Nos. 17 and 18, once when he missed the green and again when he landed in a greenside bunker.

“So far everything is on my side,” he said. “There are still two more days to go, but I have good breaks out there and there is nothing really wrong for me.”

Stadler’s 68 was the result of his work with a putter that was given to him when it was left over as a prize at a pro-am before the Andy Williams tournament.

Stadler used it for 120 feet of birdie putts. There were four of them, two 20-footers and two 40-footers. He sank another 20-footer to save par on the 11th.

“I made everything,” Stadler said.

Faldo managed to make officials angry for playing too slowly. He was warned after the 12th hole but blamed his large gallery, photographers and the number of people inside the ropes for the delay.

“It wasn’t our play, it was the movement around us,” Faldo said. “You’re not going to hit if people are moving or guys in fluorescent green jackets are there.”

Faldo had played the front nine in four under par, but he faltered with bogeys at Nos. 14 and 17 after bad drives.

“The so-called easy holes you have to birdie and the tough ones you have to par,” Faldo said. “I have been birdieing the right ones and bogeying the others.”

Perhaps it was only the thought of that course in Scotland in his head, but Price sounded as if he had learned something about his collapse six years ago, even though he was talking about Royal Lytham, not Royal Troon.

“This is the real secret,” Price said. “You make a good score going out. And then you just hold on coming in.”