Pebble Beach Golf Tournament : Playoff to Pay Off for Strange, Kite

Those may as well have been dollar bills raining Sunday on Curtis Strange and Tom Kite, who could have covered themselves in cash and enjoyed golf’s biggest payday--a $535,000 walk on the wet side at Pebble Beach.

But they didn’t.

The PGA will have its first Million Dollar man today in a sudden-death playoff, which will be televised beginning at 9 a.m. on ESPN, and it will be either Kite or Strange. They finished 72 holes in a tie after rain, wind, dark of day and rain delay kept one of them from scoring an outright victory in the $2-million Nabisco Championships.

Strange shot a mildewed 74 and lost a two-shot lead with three holes to go, including a bogey on the tournament’s 71st hole, which may prove to be a very costly mistake.

“It wasn’t a lot of fun out there,” Strange said.

And the money?

“Right now, it isn’t even entering my mind,” he said. “I do have a second chance because I still have a chance to win. But you don’t look back and see what a shot cost you. That’s the worst thing you can do. You take your medicine and go home.”

Not quite yet, though.

Kite, whose even-par round of 72 was the best score on a miserable day, birdied the 18th hole by rolling in an 8-foot putt that moved him within one stroke of Strange.

At the same time, Strange was one hole behind Kite. Then his 4-iron drive on the par-3 No. 17 found a bunker and once out, Strange faced a difficult par-saving putt from 7 feet.

He missed it. The ball hit the left part of the cup and spun away. Strange couldn’t get a 35-footer in the hole on No. 18 and, suddenly, he and Kite were left tied at 279, 9-under par.

A sudden-death playoff was postponed until today because it was too dark. Strange and Kite meet on the 16th tee to decide where a lot of money is going.

According to the cash register, this is the situation:

--If Strange wins, he gets $360,000 for the tournament and another $175,000 in bonus money for ending the year atop the PGA money list--a tidy little payday of $535,000.

--If Kite wins, he gets the $535,000 because he would be the leading money winner.

--If Strange wins, $1,147,644 is the final tally of his earnings this year, the first time a golfer has ever passed $1 million on the PGA tour for a season.

--If Kite wins, $1,039,405 is what Kite ends up with and he instead becomes the PGA’s Mr. Million.

All in all, that’s not too bad for either of the Ryder Cup teammates, who kidded each other after the playoff was announced.

“Hopefully this won’t take very long,” Strange told Kite. “I’m going to dust you off in a hurry.”

Said Kite: “Sleep well, Curtis.”

Strange began the day with 13 players within 5 strokes of his third-round lead and during a 1-hour 27-minute rain delay, held a one-shot lead over Ken Green and two over Kite.

Green, whose 74 dropped him into a third-place tie with Payne Stewart (73) and Mark Calcavecchia (74), fell out of contention with a bogey on No. 14.

Rain and strong winds hit Green at the worst possible place, when he was playing the oceanside 9th and 10th holes.

“God would have had a hard time parring them,” he said. “We played in some pretty obscene weather.”

Kite, who is a self-proclaimed bad-weather player, survived a stretch of three consecutive bogeys making the turn, but made his move back with a stunning 50-foot birdie putt on No. 12.

That birdie by Kite was on his first hole after play was resumed and restored his faith in the way he was playing, which really wasn’t all that bad under the circumstances.

He bogeyed No. 9 by missing a 2 1/2-footer when the wind blew him off his stance. Kite bogeyed No. 10 and No. 11. At the 384-yard 11th, Kite hit driver and 3-wood and was still short of the green.

“Those three holes were brutal,” he said. “But the conditions were so tough, I had to keep telling myself that if I’m having this much trouble, everybody else must be, too.”

There was enough trouble for everyone. Under the sun Saturday, 16 players broke par. No one did Sunday.

Sliding on the scoreboard was commonplace, notably by Bruce Leitzke, who had two double-bogeys in a round of 78, and Joey Sindelar, who dropped four shots in a three-hole stretch and finished at 80.

Chip Beck, who came in as the leading money winner, finished with a 79 and his 292 score was no better than a tie for 24th place, which was still worth $34,800. Sindelar tied for 21st, worth $37,200.

The driest players, at least, were Greg Norman and Mark O’Meara, who were also the speediest. The twosome got their round in before the rain and played it in only 1 hour 24 minutes, which is an unofficial record for the fastest PGA round ever played.

However, they played poorly fast. Norman and O’Meara both shot 79. They agreed to have some fun since both were hopelessly out of the race, if not the running.

“We were anywhere between a fast walk and a slow trot,” O’Meara said.

Norman said he and O’Meara actually ran on 10 or 11 holes. “If you think about it, we probably could have cut some more time if we’d done more running,” Norman said.

Norman finished last in the 30-player field, but still won $32,000.