Eastwood Is Blown Off Course

Even a birdie on the 18th hole didn’t ease the anguish for Bob Eastwood at Torrey Pines Saturday.

It wasn’t just losing his lead in the Shearson Lehman Hutton Open that distressed Eastwood. It was the way he lost it. He couldn’t cope with the wind that whipped across the ocean-front course in gusts up to 25 m.p.h.

After setting a 36-hole tournament record with a pair of 65s, Eastwood fizzled to a 76 that dropped him to third place with a 54-hole total of 206. He fell three strokes behind Dan Forsman, the new leader, and one behind Tommy Armour III.

That a flock of other mediocre-to-poor scores kept Eastwood in the running was of small solace to the 18-year pro from Stockton. He was more than a little upset about the weather conditions that detoured his drive toward his first victory on the PGA Tour since 1985.

After signing a scorecard that he would just as soon have put through a shredder, Eastwood said, “I didn’t get a break all day. I made good shots and nothing happened.”

Eastwood, 44, a San Jose State alumnus, was asked how much the wind had contributed to his undoing.

“That was all of it,” he said. “You couldn’t play anything normally. The only way to play was make trick shots, trick shots, trick shots, all day long.

“Putting was almost hopeless. The wind was blowing the ball all over the greens. I’d be standing over a putt and the ball would move.”

To illustrate what a tough time Eastwood had, consider that Escondido’s Mark O’Meara made up nine of the 10 strokes by which he had trailed Eastwood after 36 holes. O’Meara shot a 67, the best round of the day and one of only two under 70.

Told of O’Meara’s huge gain, Eastwood said, “Oh yeah? Maybe he’ll lose nine shots to me tomorrow.”

Shortly afterward, Eastwood was brought into the interview room, and by the time he got there, his mood had mellowed somewhat. Still, he couldn’t mask his disappointment.

“I expected it to be bad, but I didn’t think it would be this bad,” he said. “It seemed like everything that happened to me was negative. With the wind like it was, I knew I wouldn’t lose too much if I could shoot par, but I couldn’t come close to that.

“Once I made what I thought was an excellent putt, but all of a sudden the ball died and rolled away. Another time I hit a supposedly good putt and it rolled back at me. It was pretty tough to take.”

Eastwood lost no time in encountering trouble. He bogeyed the first two holes, and after rallying for three pars and a birdie, bogeyed three in a row.

That saddled Eastwood with a 40 for the outgoing nine, after which he shot pars except for a bogey on the 12th hole and the birdie with which his round mercifully ended.

The wind may or may not have been to blame, but Eastwood barely missed an eagle on the par-five 18th. His putt from the edge of the green came within a fraction of an inch of the pin. After that, he holed out a five-foot putt.

More typical of the kind of day Eastwood had was his frustrating experience on No. 2. He made a fine recovery from an errant drive that came to rest under a tree, then three-putted from 12 feet away.

“After 12 holes or so I figured it was time to go to work,” Eastwood said. “I played pretty good coming in, but I just couldn’t attack the golf course. I would hit a good shot and it would get caught in a gust of wind. I’ll just have to keep my patience, I guess.”

At one point, when Eastwood was waiting on the fifth tee, the wind blew his baseball cap off. He picked it up and wore it backward momentarily before turning it around.

“It was ridiculous out there,” he said.

Through it all, though, Eastwood remained in contention for the fourth tour victory of a checkered career in which he has earned $1,290,582, including $43,135 this year.

“I’m happy to be in the position I’m in, especially after today,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m just going to stick to my game plan.

“I don’t know what the weather is going to be. Who knows? It might be snowing.”