Home Cooking: O’Meara Fires 65 : Golf: He takes advantage of short commute to climb back into contention.

For Mark O’Meara, it is one of those rare times on the PGA Tour when he can live a normal family life while playing for tournament gold.

O’Meara is spending the week at home in Escondido, only 20 minutes away, so he figures he had something extra going for him when he shot a 65 Saturday in the MONY Tournament of Champions at La Costa.

The seven-under-par round was the best of the tournament so far and just one stroke shy of the tournament course record shared by Frank Beard, Craig Stadler, David Graham, Tom Kite and Calvin Peete. With it, O’Meara soared from a tie for 10th to fourth, four shots off the pace at 207 going into today’s final 18 holes.

“Living at home helps a lot,” O’Meara said. “We travel so much, living in hotels and eating in restaurants, that it gets pretty old. Even though they have a nice hotel and spa here, it’s great to be with my wife and children and eat my meals at home.

“It’s especially nice on a day like today. This being a weekend, I had extra incentive with so many old friends here. People I went to high school and college with, people I hadn’t seen for 10 years, were all coming up and saying, ‘Good luck.’ It was nice.”

O’Meara, who will turn 33 next Saturday, was born in Goldsboro, N.C., but attended Mission Viejo High School and Cal State Long Beach, earning a degree in marketing in 1980. He and his wife, Alicia, have a daughter, Michelle, 2, and a son, Shaun, 4 months.

Even a back problem that forced O’Meara to see a chiropractor three times during the week hasn’t offset the pleasure of being with his family. And if he can put together another big round today, who knows?

True, O’Meara has three men to beat. Paul Azinger leads at 203, followed by Ian Baker-Finch at 205 and Mark Calcavecchia at 206. But O’Meara climbed past six men Saturday, so he definitely has a chance.

“All I can do is do what’s best for me,” O’Meara said. “Paul and Ian are playing awfully well, and I’ll have to shoot another six- or seven-under-par round. If I do that, even if I don’t win, I’ll be very pleased.”

Burning up the Tournament of Champions layout, a combination of La Costa’s North and South courses, is nothing new for O’Meara. In 1986, in the second of his two previous appearances here, he shot 273 for the 72 holes, only to see Peete set a tournament record of 267 that still stands.

“That was tough considering the great week I had,” O’Meara said. “I’m playing as well this week as I did then, and I think I’m a better player than I was then. I’m more consistently straight down the fairway, so I don’t get into as much trouble.”

O’Meara was so consistent Saturday that he missed only one green. That was on the 16th hole, where an errant second shot led to his only bogey of the day. He had eight birdies and barely missed a ninth--with which he would have tied the tournament record--when his putt rimmed the cup on No. 18.

“I made an awfully good putt on 18, and I thought I made it for sure,” he said. “I was very surprised to see it go in the other direction.”

Still another indication that home cooking agrees with O’Meara was his performance in the Shearson Lehman Hutton Open at Torrey Pines last year. He tied for second at 273 behind Greg Twiggs and will be be back for another fling in that tournament Feb. 15-18. (Twiggs, a San Diego State alumnus from Rancho Mirage, is last at La Costa at 233.)

Also, two of O’Meara’s four tour victories have come in Califoria, although in Pebble Beach rather than San Diego County. He won the Bing Crosby Pro-Am in 1985 and its successor, the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, in 1989.

O’Meara said his back bothered him Thursday and Friday, when he shot a 69 and a 73, but was back to normal Saturday.

“Overall, I had a lot of fun out there today,” he said.