GOLF AT SHERWOOD CC : Strange-O’Meara Team Wins by 6

You know you’re having a good day on the golf course when you slash at a ball from waist-level off the side of a mountain while wedged between two giant boulders, and you still par the hole.

Such was the fortune of Curtis Strange and Mark O’Meara on Sunday as they teamed to complete a wire-to-wire run with a 10-under-par 62, giving them a six-stroke victory in the $1-million Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities Invitational in Thousand Oaks.

And you also know you’re not involved in medal-play golf when you do shoot a 62 but are beaten in the round by four strokes. Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus combined for a 58 on the tough, Sherwood Country Club course that Jack built. They were playing a scramble format, a common game among amateurs in which both players hit, then select the best ball for the second shot.

“I kept telling Mark that I wanted to win by 10 strokes,” said Strange. “I didn’t mean it to sound cocky, but with this wild format, I honestly didn’t know what it was going to take and I didn’t want either of us to relax.”

Their only tough moment came on the 16th hole, when each hit tee shots into a steep embankment above a stream. Strange bailed the team out with an awkward, baseball-type swipe at the ball, sending it far down the fairway on the par-5 hole, which they parred.

Strange and O’Meara each earned $125,000 for the win.

Bernhard Langer and John Mahaffey tied with Tom Weiskopf and Lanny Wadkins for second place. The Norman-Nicklaus team was another stroke back, tied with Ray Floyd and Chip Beck.

Norman chipped in from 60 feet on the 18th hole for one of his team’s nine birdies. They also carded three eagles and a bogey in the round and Norman was rewarded on the 18th hole with a roar from spectators and a leaping high-five from Nicklaus.

The tournament raised nearly $1.5 million for charities, including the Ronald McDonald House, a support program for children with cancer.