Women’s Golf Tournament at Rancho Park : Lopez Shoots 67, Tied With Sanders, Walker

Nancy Lopez is playing well again at one of her favorite courses, but her biggest fan is obliged to stay at home.

Lopez shot a five-under-par 67 Friday at Rancho Park to share the first-round lead of the AI Star/Centinela Hospital golf tournament with Susan Sanders and Colleen Walker.

The popular Lopez always has a sizable gallery, but her husband, Ray Knight, is home with their children in Albany, Ga.

Knight, a retired major league baseball player, was a part-time caddie for his wife until recently. Their relationship, Lopez said, is much more serene when he’s watching her as a spectator rather than offering advice on club selection.

“I don’t make many mistakes when he’s watching,” Lopez said. “When he’s caddying it’s different, though. I think what happens if I get mad on the course, I can’t get mad at him.”

So Lopez said she would talk to her husband later Friday night, describing her round.

“He gets very excited,” Lopez said. “He wants my scoring average to stay down.”

Lopez also conceded that Knight is very competitive. “He doesn’t think I should miss any shots,” she said, smiling. “He thinks that I’m that good.

Although Lopez wouldn’t mind her husband cheering her on from behind the ropes that separate the players from the gallery, she’s not eager for him to caddie for her any more.

“Ray said that he knows he can do a good job (caddying) for me, but I don’t think I’ll offer him one for a while,” Lopez said good-naturedly.

Lopez, the defending champion, also won at Rancho in 1978 and 1979 when the tournament was known as the Sunstar. Her win in 1978, her rookie year, was her second on the LPGA tour as a 21-year-old future star.

She has been close to winning this year with two seconds and a third on the LPGA tour. She said, though, that her putter betrayed her at times.

Now she’s bringing back a putter that she first used when she was 12.

Lopez had seven birdies and two bogeys in her round and she made birdie putts of 35 and 20 feet.

“I haven’t had one like that (35 feet) in a long time,” she said.

“I like this course. I have positive feelings about it. I hope I play well here every day. I have good vibrations here.”

Lopez said that she has followed the advice of Lee Trevino, who once told her about clubs, “If it stops working. It’s time to change.”

So Lopez switched putters, acknowledging, though, that it’s more of a mental thing.

“You have only two choices. Either you’re going to make it (a putt), or miss it. You have to be positive,” she said.

Lopez reasons that she could have won at least two tournaments this year if her putting had been better.

Most of the players said the Rancho course, 6,213 yards, plays longer than the yardage and is one of the longest layouts on the tour.

But it didn’t inhibit Lopez, or Sanders or Walker, for that matter.

Sanders, who has missed three cuts this year and hasn’t finished higher than eighth in any tournament, had an inconsistent start from the 10th tee.

She birdied the 364-yard, par-four 10th hole, but then got bogeys at the 11th and 12th holes. She recovered, though, for birdies at the 17th and 18th holes and then got four more birdies on the back nine.

Sanders said she didn’t expect to play that well, adding, “But I made some putts and here I am.”

She came on the tour in 1985 and is looking for her first victory.

Walker, who has been on the tour since 1982 and has two wins, had five birdies without a bogey in her round of 67.

“The wind played havoc at the end,” she said, “and it was tough on club selection.”

Golf Notes

Hitting into trees usually results in bogeys. However, the trees didn’t penalize Martha Nause, who shot 68. “I hit into the trees five times,” Nause said, “and the first two times I did it, I got birdies.” That’s not the standard way to collect birdies, but Nause isn’t complaining with her round of five birdies and one bogey. “I could have been in a lot deeper trouble than the way I ended up,” she said.

Kay Cockerill, a former UCLA player who is only in her second year on the tour, said she always wanted to play the course when she was in school, but it was too crowded. However, she did get in practice round once for the L.A. city championship, but didn’t play in that tournament. The former two-time U.S. amateur champion shot a 70 Friday. . . . USC freshman Terri Thompson, the only amateur in the field, shot a 78.