GOLF : This Foursome Won’t Be a Strange Sight

The seventh annual Skins Game next weekend at PGA West in La Quinta could be called the Almost Seniors Skins Game if it weren’t for Curtis Strange, the baby of the foursome that will shoot it out hole by hole for $450,000 in two days.

Strange is 34, but Lee Trevino will turn 50--the legal age for senior membership in professional golf--on Dec. 1 and Jack Nicklaus will do the same on Jan. 21. Raymond Floyd, the defending Skins champion, is 47.

They will play nine holes Saturday and nine holes Sunday on the TPC’s stadium course for a designated prize on each hole. If two or more players tie on a hole, the prize is carried over to the next hole.

Strange, winner of the U.S. Open in 1988 and ‘89, will be looking for his first dollar in the event after being skinned last year. Floyd, on the other hand, will be trying to match or top the $290,000 he took home last year.

Chi Chi Rodriguez will conduct his humorous and informative clinic Saturday before the Skins Game tee-off.

Bob Charles and Orville Moody will continue their battle for the Senior PGA Tour’s money-winning honors in the GTE West tournament Nov. 30-Dec. 2 at the Ojai Valley resort course.

Charles, the New Zealander who began last week only $152 ahead of Moody, increased his margin to $15,111 with a second place in Las Vegas, where the Sarge tied for seventh. Charles has earned $592,390 with two tournaments remaining, Ojai Valley and the GTE Kaanapali event Dec. 7-9 at Lahaina, Hawaii (on the island of Maui).

After a two-day pro-am Nov. 28-29, the 72 senior professionals will play 54 holes for $350,000. Harold Henning of South Africa is the defending champion, and the field will include Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Gene Littler and Don January, as well as Charles, Moody and Rodriguez.

Trevino, who missed becoming eligible to play at Ojai by one day, will have to wait until the following week to join the seniors.

Nicklaus will enter the senior ranks Jan. 27-28 in the Seniors Skins Game in Hawaii.

Twenty-four of the best collegiate men’s and women’s teams in the country will play this week in the Pioneer Electronics Bruin Desert tournament at the Mission Hills complex in Rancho Mirage.

The festivities begin today with a pro-am that includes LPGA pros Amy Alcott, honorary coach of the Bruins, and two recent UCLA graduates--Kay Cockerill and Kristal Parker. The three-day event will start Monday.

Heading the women’s field will be freshman Brandie Burton of Arizona State, recent winner of the Tulsa and Stanford Invitationals; senior Jean Zeditz of host UCLA, a first-team All-American last year and winner of the BYU and Oregon Invitationals this year, and Pat Hurst and Dina Ammaccapane, who helped San Jose State win the NCAA championship last season.

First-year coach Dave Atchison and his UCLA squad are favored in the men’s division. The Bruins are led by seniors Rob Sullivan and Ken Tanigawa.

Golf Notes

Greg Norman will be at Newport Beach Country Club Monday for a driving-range clinic and a nine-hole exhibition for the Assessment and Treatment Service Center for juveniles and the SoCal PGA Junior Golf Assn. Tee time for the clinic is 9 a.m. . . . Also on Monday, the City of Hope-Eric Tracy celebrity tournament will be held at Braemar CC, with several major league baseball players taking part. Former U. S. Women’s Open champion Donna Caponi will conduct a clinic before the tournament. . . . The Mizuno-SoCal PGA Players Championship is scheduled for Nov. 27 at the Moreno Valley Ranch courses. It will be a one-day, 27-hole event. . . . Spalding Sports Worldwide has renewed its sponsorship of the Golden State Players Tour for 1990. The mini-tour for pros and amateurs will be at Meadowlake CC in Escondido Monday and at Los Coyotes CC in Buena Park on Nov. 27. . . . Actor McLean Stevenson will serve as host for the Footprinters tournament Dec. 1 at the California CC in Whittier for the benefit of of the Children’s Burn Foundation.

Pro Fred Scherzer will be the host of Avondale CC’s 20th annual pro-member-guest invitational Saturday and Sunday at the Palm Desert course. Former LPGA pro Kathy Hite is tournament director. . . . Also scheduled next weekend is the John Riley Invitational at Palm Springs CC. . . . The purse for the Shearson Lehman Hutton Open, once known as the San Diego Open, has been raised to $900,000. The tournament will be played Feb. 15-18 at the Torrey Pines municipal courses. . . . The deadline for entering amateur qualifying for the Nissan Los Angeles Open is Dec. 1. Players must have handicaps of no more than two. The two top finishers in an 18-hole round Dec. 11 at California CC will qualify for the event at Riviera Feb. 22-25. The U. S. National Senior Open will be played Nov. 28-30 at Tatum Ranch GC, Scottsdale CC and Arizona Biltmore CC in Arizona. . . . Regional qualifying for the inaugural Ben Hogan Tour will be held Dec. 12-14 at the Wigwam GC in Litchfield Park, Ariz.; Northshore CC in Portland, Tex.; Ravines GC in Middleburg, Fla., and Belle Terre CC in LaPlace, La. The tour will start Jan. 29-Feb. 4 at Bakersfield CC. . . . William C. Campbell, former president of the United States Golf Assn., and Kathy Corbin, a teaching pro in Phoenix noted for her work with the physically impaired, are the 1989 winners of the National Golf Foundation’s Herb Graffis and Joe Graffis awards, the foundation’s highest honors.