GOLF / RICH TOSCHES : Up-and-Down Pavin Trying to Find His Equilibrium

Yogi Berra once said that 90% of pitching is half mental.

And the same goes for golf.

Corey Pavin, 30, is just one of many great examples. The former UCLA star from Oxnard, who at 17 became the youngest golfer to win the Los Angeles Men’s City Amateur tournament, blazed onto the PGA Tour in 1984, winning the Houston Open and finishing 18th on the money list.

In 1985, he became one of the world’s top players, winning the Colonial National Invitational and vaulting to sixth place on the money list. Pavin won two tournaments in 1986 and two more in 1987, including the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Springs.

And then came the big fade.

He won the Texas Open in 1988 by a whopping eight strokes after opening with rounds of 64 and 63, but he failed dismally in most other tournaments. He tumbled to 50th on the money list and began redesigning the swing that had brought him fame and riches.

It didn’t work. Last year he played in 28 tour events and finished in the top 10 in just one.

“Corey’s biggest problem now is learning how to ride the emotional highs and lows and to maintain his stability throughout a tournament,” said Bruce Hamilton, the pro at Las Posas Country Club in Oxnard who began teaching Pavin 15 years ago and still works with him on his swing.

“He tried to refine his swing more and more and it got too mechanical. He lost his natural rhythm.”

When Pavin and Hamilton can’t get together to work on the swing, they let their fingers do the swinging.

“I give him lessons over the phone,” Hamilton said. “I’ve been with him for so many years and I know him so well that we can do it. He holds the club and keeps the phone to his ear and tells me exactly where his hands are and decribes the swing. And just from that description, I can sometimes tell what he’s doing wrong.”

While Hamilton has worked on Pavin’s swing, psychologist Richard Coop of the University of North Carolina has started working on that part of athletics that Yogi Berra felt was so essential: the mental part.

Two weeks ago, the combination seemed to be working when he tied for second at the Southwestern Open at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas two weeks ago, his first finish in the top three in a PGA event in two years.

But last week he stumbled again, finishing 36th in the Kemper Open in Potomac, Md.

Perhaps 90% of golf is more than half mental.

Up and down: Stephanie Martin of Ventura, a freshman at Oklahoma State and the daughter of Saticoy Country Club head pro Lee Martin, carded an eagle recently on the fifth hole--a 401-yard par-four--at the Saticoy course. She hit a three-wood from 200 yards on her second shot and watched the ball roll into the cup.

A week later she wasn’t so lucky.

In the NCAA championships at Hilton Head, S.C., Martin finished with a 72-hole score of 310, 13 shots behind winner Susan Slaughter of Arizona. Martin’s Oklahoma State team finished 16th in the 17-team competition.

Open and shut: The U.S. Open has become the U.S. Closed for five Valley-area golfers who had advanced to sectional qualifying for the event.

Professional golfer Wayne Case of Thousand Oaks and amateurs Richard Greenwood of Encino, Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys, Mike Blewett of Westlake Village and Pat Wingard of Oxnard were among 58 golfers who played in the 36-hole qualifying tournament on Tuesday at the San Francisco Country Club. At stake were six berths in one of the PGA’s most prestigious events.

None of them made it.

Steinberg, 32, an optometrist in Studio City, came the closest. He missed, by just a stroke, qualifying for a berth in a sudden-death playoff for the sixth and final spot. Steinberg opened with a round of 76 and appeared to be out of contention, but came back with a one-under-par 71 in the afternoon round and finished at 147. Steve Schroeder of Atherton grabbed the final U.S. Open berth by shooting a 146 and then carding a birdie on the first playoff hole.

Greenwood, a former UCLA player, was a stroke behind Steinberg at 148 with rounds of 73 and 75. Case, who has played extensively on the European Tour and in Australia, was at 153 with rounds of 75 and 78. Blewett shot rounds of 80 and 77 for 157 and Wingard finished at 160 with rounds of 82 and 78.

Steinberg, who played for USC for four years, will play at the end of the month in the California Amateur Championships on the Monterey Peninsula. He reached the quarterfinals of that tournament in 1988 and 1989.