GOLF : For This One, Tour Pros Are Team Players

When previous Los Angeles Open winners get together at the Riviera Country Club, as Dave Stockton and Fred Couples did recently, you would expect that they’d talk about the tournament.

Stockton won the event in 1974 while being pressured by the legendary Sam Snead, and Couples will defend his championship next month at Riviera.

The 1991 Nissan L.A Open is Feb. 21-24, but they seemed more interested in another event--the Ryder Cup. The Ryder Cup?

For many years, this team competition pitting the United States against players from Britain and Ireland was not regarded as important news. And perhaps for good reason. American golfers routinely won the biennial matches.

However, since the British team was expanded to include other European nations, American interest in the event has been revived. A stronger team now, the Europeans have maintained possession of the cup since 1985 with two victories and a tie.

American pros perceive these setbacks as demeaning, and in an individual sport such as golf, the team aspect is now unusually appealing.

As captain of the U.S. team for the 1991 Ryder Cup matches Sept. 27-29 at Kiawah Island off the coast of South Carolina, Stockton has already started assembling his team.

Ten members are chosen on the basis of a two-year point system derived from a player’s standing in the four majors--the U.S. and British Opens, the Masters and the PGA Championship--and other selected PGA Tour events.

The 1991 PGA champion, provided he meets eligibility requirements, is also an automatic team member. Then, Stockton will select an additional player to complete the team.

Stockton said that he has selected half of his team. Couples leads in points with 425, and based on last year’s results, Payne Stewart, Wayne Levi, Hale Irwin and Paul Azinger are almost certain to be included.

It’s a unique event, since there is not a rich purse to entice players.

“We play so many events that are manufactured by the managers of the world, and you get guarantees to play in them,” Stockton said. “We’re just playing for a gold trophy. We’re not getting compensation.

“And we’re not playing as individuals. We’re playing as a team. It’s so unique and such an opportunity for us that we’d kill to get on the team.”

As a member of the 1989 Ryder Cup team, Couples said he had more fun than playing in the U.S. Open or the Masters.

He also ruefully recalls that he lost two matches in a 14-14 tie at the Belfry Golf Club in Sutton Coldfield, England.

“I took it that I lost for 12 guys and their wives and the coach,” Couples said. “I was a mess. I didn’t leave the locker room for two hours.

“I lost the PGA Championship last year by bogeying four of the last six holes and, later, that didn’t really bother me at all.

“Put it this way: If I could lose the PGA every year for the rest of my life by a couple of strokes, I’d be a great, great player. But if I lost the Ryder Cup every time I played, it would be a bad feeling.

“When (the Europeans) ran onto the green after the matches and started jumping on each other, I just figured I lost it, even though we tied.”

Couples said other American players are also passionately dedicated to returning the cup to the United States.

“When players say they’re playing to make the Ryder Cup team, they’re not just saying it to be saying it,” he said.

“It would be a disappointment for Lanny Wadkins not to make the team. I’m good friends with Mark Calcavecchia, and he has made the comment he would rather win the Ryder Cup than any other tournament.”

Couples said players now change their schedules to get Ryder Cup points, adding: “I don’t think that was the case a few years ago because whoever we got, we’d (still) win the cup.

“It’s just that the European players have gotten so much better. Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer have won the Masters. Their tour is much stronger (than before). It’s also a huge deal for them.

“So it becomes a grudge match for a week even though in golf we’re all friends.”

Couples said he is going to take a week off in his tour schedule to practice at Kiawah Island in preparation for the matches. “I might be the only guy on the course,” he added.

The Pete Dye-designed course is on a 10,000-acre barrier island, 21 miles from Charleston, S.C. The island is 10 miles long and 1 1/2 miles at its widest point.

“It’s a seaside, links-type course,” Stockton said. “I have yet to be down there when the wind didn’t blow. It’s a very difficult course, like Spyglass or Cypress Point at Pebble Beach. I hope the guys who make the team are from Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, somebody who is used to playing in the wind.”

As an individual sport, players are usually absorbed only with their own rounds. The Ryder Cup changes that perception.

“For me to go to Kiawah Island and shoot nine under par every day, I couldn’t care less,” Couples said. “I want all of us to shoot two under par every day and win.

“If it’s all tied, whoever wins the last hole to win the Ryder Cup, why that would be like being President of the United States for a year.”

Golf Notes

Many right-handed golfers are naturally left-handed. However, Phil Mickelson, who won the recent Tucson Open, switched from right to left at an early age. The NCAA and U.S. Amateur champion said he was only about 2 when he watched his father swing a golf club. “He was facing me,” Mickelson said. “I tried to copy him, but I did it in the way he looked to me. And that was a mirror image. He tried to correct me, but I guess I was pretty stubborn. I’d look at him, and that’s the way it looked like he was swinging. Every time he’d change me, I’d turn around again. I guess in time he just gave up on it.”

Add Mickelson: Despite the lure of rich purses on the PGA Tour, Mickelson said he intends to remain an amateur for a while. “Money is no problem right now,” the Arizona State player said. “I’m on scholarship. There’s no pressure on me financially to go out and try to make money. And I’m not sure I’m ready for the travel every week and grinding like those guys do every day. They’re tough.” The feeling is mutual. Said Tom Purtzer, who finished second to Mickelson at Tucson: “For the sake of our pocketbooks, I just want them to make sure he stays in school another couple of years.”

A record 1,276,094 rounds of golf were recorded on the city’s 13 courses in 1990 despite problems with greens at some courses, it was announced by the City Recreation and Parks Dept. The Tom Flavin Invitational tournament to benefit the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund will be held at Los Verdes golf course on Feb. 4. . . . The Southern California PGA will sponsor its second annual Golf Expo Feb. 8-10 at the Anaheim Stadium Exhibition Center.