GOLF : Mom Inkster Works Again in Dinah Shore

Juli Inkster, defending champion of the $600,000 Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament, has not hit a golf ball in competition since Oct. 1, but despite being off nearly six months, she will be on the firing line this week in the crown jewel of the LPGA Tour on the Mission Hills Country Club course at Rancho Mirage.

Seven weeks ago, on Feb. 4, Inkster had what she calls her “biggest win ever, by far,” when she gave birth to her first child, Hayley Carole Inkster.

Her golf game has taken a back seat to the newcomer.

“I don’t think I realized how much adjustment you have to make in your life with a baby in the house,” Inkster said from her home in Northern California.

“It used to be easy for me to play golf, practice, come home and take a nap and maybe go out and hit some more balls. Now I get up with the baby, get her ready, go to the golf course and play and practice a little and go home to the baby. There’s so much that has to be done.”

Hayley Carole will be in Rancho Mirage with Juli and her family, and there will no shortage of baby-sitters with Juli’s mother, Carole Simpson, and her mother-in-law, Louise Inkster, on hand.

“If I wasn’t the defending champion, I wouldn’t start this soon,” Inkster said. “And if Hayley didn’t have such doting grandmothers, I wouldn’t be going. I couldn’t bear to leave her with strangers when she’s so little.

“I don’t know what to expect from my golf. After all, I’ve never had a baby before, so I don’t know exactly what changes my body’s gone through. I’ve only been practicing seriously for about 10 days. I really didn’t have much choice. The first three weeks after Hayley was born, I didn’t feel that good, and by that time, (husband) Brian had to get back to work, so about all my time was taken up with her.”

There are about a dozen mothers playing regularly on the tour, including Nancy Lopez, Donna White, Dale Eggling, Cathy Gerring, Myra Blackwelder and Cathy Moran.

Inkster, 29, has been playing golf the year around since she was a teen-ager in Santa Cruz. She took her first break from the game during her pregnancy.

“I felt like I was pregnant for six years,” she said, “but I found out how much enjoyment there was in being a homebody. I cooked dinner at night, made breakfast, went shopping, wallpapered the nursery, and went to every (San Francisco) Giants, Warriors and 49ers home game. I’ve always been a sports junkie, but I never got in as many games as I did the last few months.”

Juli and Brian were at Candlestick Park when the earthquake hit during the World Series.

“Candlestick really held up,” she said. “We were six rows up with no overhangs, so we weren’t in danger. When we got home we found some broken dishes, but no major damage.”

Los Altos, where the Inksters live, is about halfway between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, the quake’s epicenter.

Brian Inkster is head golf professional at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club.

“Before Hayley was born, Brian said that he was going to put a tennis racket in the crib first thing,” Juli said. “He said we have enough golfers in the family now.”

Inkster’s biggest problems in the Dinah Shore will probably be her lack of a competitive edge and her questionable stamina.

“I chipped and putted even when I wasn’t playing any golf, and I’ve hit the ball pretty well since I’ve started playing again, but there’s no substitute for being out there in the midst of things where you have to make the shots to win,” she said.

“I feel fine physically, I’ve done a lot of walking, but I don’t know about playing seven rounds in a row (including one in practice, two in the pro-am and the 72-hole tournament). If it’s hot down there, it’ll really test my stamina, but I’ve got to get my feet wet sooner or later, so it may as well be this week.”

Inkster will play in the Dinah Shore and the Red Robin Kyocera Inamori tournament at the StoneRidge course in San Diego next week, then take two weeks off.

“I’m glad I’ll have only two tournaments before the LPGA takes some time off because I want to see some baseball,” Inkster said. “I was really worried when they didn’t go to spring training. I don’t know what I’d do if the Giants weren’t playing.”

Then she remembered she was a new mother.

“Of course, it’ll be great to have a couple of weeks off to watch Hayley grow,” she said. “I can’t believe how much she’s changed in the first six weeks.”

Hayley was named after the daughter of Ian Baker-Finch, an Australian who plays on the PGA Tour.

“I played an exhibition with Ian about a year ago, and he told me he had a daughter named Hayley, and ever since then I’ve really liked the sound of it,” she said. “And when you see our daughter, you’ll see Hayley really fits her, too.”

Inkster won the Dinah Shore last year with what she called “a week when everything came together, everything was perfect.” She shot a nine-under-par 279 to win by five strokes over Tammie Green and JoAnne Carner. It was her second victory, the first coming in her rookie season of 1983--after winning three consecutive U.S. Amateur championships. Only two others, Amy Alcott and Sandra Post, have won the Dinah Shore twice.

After discussing motherhood, her game, her past victories and her future, Juli signed off the interview with a parting shot: “Our Giants are going to whip your Dodgers next year, you know that, don’t you?”

Golf Notes

Former touring pro Jim Colbert and noted instructor Jimmy Ballard will conduct free clinics today at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at the Tustin Ranch GC, on Irvine Boulevard and Tustin Ranch Road in Tustin. Ballard teaches Curtis Strange, Hal Sutton and Sandy Lyle, among others, at the Doral Club in Miami. . . . The deadline for entering the L. A. City Junior Championships is Friday. The tournament will be April 9-10 at the Balboa and Encino courses. . . . Desmond Muirhead, who designed Mission Hills, site of this week’s Nabisco Dinah Shore LPGA tournament, has ended a 12-year retirement to create the Segovia course in Chiyoda, Japan, near Tokyo. Gene Sarazen calls Muirhead “the greatest golf architect of our time.”

When Masters champion Nick Faldo was named 1989 sports personality of the year by the British Broadcasting Corp., his closest competitors in the balloting were Frank Bruno, a boxer, and Steve Davis, the world snooker champion. Faldo is the first golfer selected since Dai Rees in 1957, the year Faldo was born. . . . Bob Clark of Santa Ana, the 1969 NCAA champion at Cal State Los Angeles, won the amateur championship in the annual Chrysler National Putting tournament at Sarasota, Fla. Clark, 42, is a mortgage banker who plays out of Bear Creek CC. He defeated Bill Graham, 19, of Danville, Ill., 2 up, in the 18-hole final.

Dr. O’Neil Hadnott, who died of a heart attack 10 days ago while hitting golf balls on the Westchester driving range, was not only the L.A. City men’s senior champion, he was also the Riviera club and senior champion and was a former club champion at the Rancho municipal course. . . . Mutual of New York, the MONY that has been part of the Tournament of Champions since 1975, is dropping out as sponsor of the winners-only tournament. Director Mike Crosthwaite said that a new sponsor will be named soon for the event that annually opens the PGA season at La Costa.

Bill Bengeyfield, director of the U.S. Golf Assn. agronomy section and former director of maintenance at Industry Hills GC, will retire Saturday. Bengeyfield is considered the leading authority on turfgrass in the country. . . . Amie Amizich, who retired as an Army lieutenant colonel before joining the LPGA Tour at 39, died recently after suffering a heart attack in her hometown of Kerrville, Tex. She was 68. . . . Jeff Miller, with Bob Knauss of Industry Hills as his partner, won the Los Serranos Invitational with a net 59. Five shots back were course manager Kevin Sullivan, a lefty, and former Heisman trophy winner Les Horvath.

Larry Chamberlain and Jim Gilstrap, both of La Quinta, won a $10,000 contribution to the Desert Junior Golf Assn. for finishing second in the Lexus Champions for Charity tournament at PGA West. Fifty two-man amateur teams from around the country competed in the finals. The winning team won a $15,000 donation. . . . The Spalding Golden State Tour will play Monday at Lakewood CC, Friday at California CC and April 2 at Mile Square GC in Fountain Valley. Amateurs will also play Friday at Brookside GC in Pasadena.