GOLF / PGA SENIORS : Player, Henning Share Lead After Second Round

Jack Nicklaus backed up, Jim Ferree messed up and Gary Player and Harold Henning came out of the second round tied for the lead Friday in the 51st PGA Seniors Championship.

Early in the day, South Africans Player and Henning matched 69s for one-under-par 143 totals on the 6,630-yard Champion course at PGA National Golf Club. At the time, it appeared that they had at least played themselves back into contention.

Then strange things began to happen.

Nicklaus played a round to forget by making four double bogeys on the last 11 holes en route to a 78 and a 146 total, slipping from a three-stroke lead into a tie for eighth place, three shots off the pace.

Ferree, who had inherited the lead as a result of Nicklaus’ troubles, made a bogey at the par-four 16th hole and a triple bogey at the par-five 18th. Then while checking his scorecard, he was informed he would be assessed a two-stroke penalty for a misstep on the 16th green.

After leaving a six-foot putt for par on the edge of the hole, Ferree moved up to tap in his third putt but accidentally stepped on his own line, hitting the ball from a croquet-type stance.

According to Larry Startzel, chairman of the rules committee for the Professional Golfers’ Assn., this was a violation of Rule 16-1e, which reads, “The player shall not make a stroke on the putting green from a stance astride, or with either foot touching, the line of the putt or an extension of that line behind the ball.”

Startzel said: “There are 34 basic rules in golf, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a 300-yard drive or a one-inch putt, a violation occurred.”

Ferree was informed of the penalty in the scoring tent moments after his triple bogey. He left the golf course quickly and could not be reached for comment.

The triple bogey? He hit his third shot over the green, subsequently bladed a bunker shot back through to the front of the green, used his putter from the fringe to within 12 feet of the cup, then three-putted.

As a result, Ferree lost six strokes on the last three holes and dropped from the lead. He shot a 77 and is tied for 12th at 148.

Nicklaus said he could not remember making four double bogeys in one round. “Maybe I got all my bad golf, all of my bad breaks, out of my system,” he said.

His double bogeys:

At the par-four eighth, he blocked his driver into the trees, hit an overhanging tree limb with a seven-iron and the ball dropped into a canal in front of the green.

At the par-four 11th, one of the new holes he created when he redesigned the course last year, Nicklaus’ second shot, an eight-iron from a freshly sodded patch of fairway, did not clear a lake.

At the par-four 14th, he pulled a six-iron second shot about 20 feet and saw the ball hit the downslope of a grassy knob and bounce out of bounds by about three inches.

And at the par-three 15th, his five-iron tee shot into a bunker left him with “no shot to the green.” He hit it back toward the fairway, about an 80-degree angle to the hole from where he was standing.

“The worst thing that happened,” he said, smiling, “is that I found out I was human after all. The way I played the last couple of weeks, I was beginning to wonder.”