Tales From the Dark Side : Golf: Courses for Pebble Beach Pro-Am can be the stuff of nightmares for pros and amateurs alike.

If misery loves company, there’s quite a crowd gathered on the golf courses of the Monterey Peninsula.

From the high-handicap hacker to the touring pro, everyone seems to have a horror story to tell. And that’s especially true if the wind is howling off the ocean and rain is splattering into a player’s face.

The AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am begins today on three courses--Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Cypress Point--that have given amateurs and pros alike some forgettable moments.

Mark O’Meara has had uncommon success here, winning the tournament in 1985 and again last year. He also won the California State Amateur championship here in 1979. But O’Meara is aware that disaster is always lurking, even for the most gifted player.

Take the par-three 16th hole at Cypress, a 231-yard carry over the ocean. It’s a difficult hole even in calm weather. Add the elements and it’s frightening.

The hole is rated the fourth-most difficult on the PGA Tour with an average score of 3.441.

“You try not to think about it,” O’Meara said, “but sooner or later you get there, and there’s usually a wait, which makes it more difficult because then there’s a debate.

“Should I go for it, or should I lay up (to a bailout area of approximately 150 yards). If I lay up, I can probably make three, maybe at worse a four. If I go for it, I might not finish. I may not have enough golf balls.

“One year, I decided to take that chance. I hit the first one in the ocean short. I hit the next one in the ice plants. And then the next one in the ocean. I think I walked off with a nine or 10. Once you’re committed, you have to keep going.”

No one knows the perils that await a player better than actor Jack Lemmon, the amateur who doggedly is trying to make the cut for the first time after 26 previous years of trying.

Asked to identify his worst nightmare here, Lemmon laughed and said: “There is no single one horror story, there are dozens of things. I recall that after two rainouts, I went out behind the 18th green and I said I’m going to hit a bunch of cut balls into the ocean.

“My caddie had my umbrella over me. The rain is really coming down. I took out a five-iron, and I think the ball went about 20 feet. The five-iron went 160 yards straight out, and I think a seal has got that sucker.

“At Cypress in the rain, I hit a ball behind me 50 yards, and that’s not easy. The club got the mud, the mud got the ball, the ball stuck to the mud and the ball went backward.

“Then, I got into a trap and I realized the club was getting closer to my Adam’s apple as I was sinking. I hit the ball over the green, and now I couldn’t get up. When I gave my club to the caddie and he pulled me, I left one shoe in the trap.

“Then, I took off the other shoe and said, ‘To hell with it.’ When I got on the 18th, I was laying 13. I even hit a kid. I was still 30 feet from the pin, and my caddie was in a total state of shock. I asked my caddie which way the putt breaks, and he said, ‘Who cares.’

“I also remember hitting a three-wood off the tee at Cypress and I just ticked the end of the ball with the toe of the club. And the ball went dead straight up in the air, and a little old lady caught it--and I’m still looking down the fairway.”

Actor Don Johnson is making his first appearance in the tournament, which was once known as the Bing Crosby Clambake.

Listening to Lemmon’s harrowing stories, he was already getting nervous.

“I’ll be trying to avoid the Gerald Ford Hall of Fame,” said Johnson, referring to the former President’s wild shots off the tee that have bounced off spectators.

Lemmon offered Johnson, who has an 18 handicap, some advice:

“When you get on the first tee, just pretend it’s opening night and you’re playing Hamlet and you’ve had no rehearsals, and you’ll be better off.”

Fuzzy Zoeller said he has been fortunate in that he doesn’t have any horror stories. “I’ve avoided all obstacles here,” he said. “However, it could happen and probably will before I put my clubs away.”

Zoeller recalled that when he won here in 1986, the year weather shortened the tournament to 54 holes, he and Payne Stewart came to the seventh hole at Pebble, a par three measuring only 107 yards.

“We’re standing up there with a 60-m.p.h. wind blowing in our faces. I hit a five -iron quail high as hard as I could hit it, and it was a foot off the green.

“Payne Stewart hit a five-iron and it ballooned up, and he ended to the left of the eighth tee. Those are horror stories. It’s frightening when you just miss a little bit.

“That’s the challenge of the golf courses. Mother Nature plays a big role here.”

Golf Notes

The pros will be playing with their amateur partners on three courses for 54 holes, then play Sunday’s final round at Pebble Beach. The purse is $1 million, with first place worth $180,000. . . . Payne Stewart says that the Monterey Peninsula is his favorite place to play in the world. “I have never found a place that’s more beautiful to play golf. It doesn’t matter what the weather is, either,” he said. “You come here and expect the weather to be nasty, like the British Open. If we get good weather, it’s a bonus. I hope it blows and rains because it eliminates part of the field.”

It has been raining off and on for two days, and rain is forecast for today. . . . Celebrities in the field include Michael Keaton, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Burt Lancaster and Peter Ueberroth.