GOLF / MAL FLORENCE : Plenty of Good Players, but No Great One

Even though the PGA Tour is flourishing in terms of escalating purses and television commitments, there is a void when it comes to superstars.

America no longer has players such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson, who were dominant at stages in their careers.

Leader boards are cluttered with new names, and it’s difficult for the average fan to identify with some of the newcomers.

For example, there were 10 first-time winners on the tour last year. So far this year five American players--amateur Phil Mickelson, Rocco Mediate, Larry Silveira, Kenny Perry and Billy Andrade--are first-time winners and five have won for only the second time.

It seemed for a while that Curtis Strange, Tom Kite, Mark Calcavecchia or Paul Azinger would emerge as the new American superstar.

But Strange hasn’t won a tournament since 1989, when he posted the second of his consecutive U.S. Open victories. Kite, the all-time leading money winner, has won only twice since he was player of the year in 1989. Calcavecchia’s last victory was the British Open in 1989. Azinger hasn’t won more than one tournament in a season since 1988.

This trend is likely to continue because the veteran players say that the tour is now deeper in talent.

“Some writers are yearning for someone to latch onto as superstars,” said Watson, whose six tournament victories in 1980 have been unequaled since. “One of the reasons is equipment, eclipsing the sport somewhat. Equipment allows for more mis-hits to reach the fairway and green.

“And the money we are playing for has a lot to do with it. When you can earn two to three million dollars in five years and you don’t have to worry the rest of your life, it is making players more serious about the game.”

Hal Sutton told USA Today that the younger players aren’t intimidated, as they were when Nicklaus was dominant.

“When I started, we were in awe of some of the big names,” Sutton said. “But the young players today aren’t afraid of anybody.”

Andrade, 27, who won for the first time in the Kemper Open a couple of weeks ago and then was a repeat winner in the Buick tournament preceding the U.S. Open, said there is a reason for young players surging to the top of the leader boards nowadays.

“Junior golf programs are flourishing and college programs are much better,” he said. “The Ben Hogan tour has given a lot of good, young players a chance to play.”

All of that, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that a dominating player won’t emerge.

“There is a need for a young, American player to break through, and it’s going to happen,” Andrade said. “Some guy is going to do it and if it’s me, that’s great.”

Andrade’s “break through” was stalled, though, at the U.S. Open as he failed to make the cut.

“I guess that goes to show I’m not superman,” Andrade said. “I had a wonderful run, but I hit the wall.”

Trivia question: Who was the last player to win three consecutive tournaments?

A foreign player hasn’t won the U.S. Open since Britain’s Tony Jacklin in 1970 at the Hazeltine National Golf Club, site of the current U.S. Open.

Australian David Graham won the Open in 1981, but he has lived in the U.S. for many years and has been a PGA Tour player since 1971.

However, foreigners have won the past four Masters tournaments, most recently Ian Woosnam last April.

There is a reason for foreign players’ relative lack of impact in the Open: numbers.

The USGA exempts only up to seven foreign players from qualifying each year.

Woosnam, Seve Ballesteros and Nick Faldo have suggested that the sanctioning United States Golf Assn. should treat European players the same as the British Open treats PGA Tour stars. Up to 30 U.S. players are invited to the British Open, and anyone else can qualify the week of the tournament.

“Sure, British players should be given more exemptions,” said Faldo, who won the Masters in 1989 and ’90 and missed getting into a U.S. Open playoff with Hale Irwin and Mike Donald by one shot last year.

“We have good players. We have Ryder Cup players who have been winning and some don’t get into the U.S. Open,” Faldo said.

USGA President Grant Spaeth, replying to a question of relaxing the rules to allow more international players in the U.S. Open field, said the matter was before the championship committee.

“A variety of ways of expanding the international field are under discussion,” Spaeth said.

Although Faldo, who lost in a playoff to Strange in the 1988 U.S. Open, has fared well in the tournament, he said that Open-type courses don’t generally favor Europeans.

“We don’t have uniformity of rough in Europe,” he said. “You can hit it in the rough and it can be not so bad. Here, if you are in it, you take a wedge, chop it back up the fairway and proceed. Generally, American courses are tougher than British courses.”

Trivia answer: Gary Player in 1978.

Andrade, who grew up in Rhode Island, is an ardent Boston Red Sox fan. He has also become good friends with Boston pitcher Roger Clemens.

Two years ago, while playing with Clemens in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament, he gave the baseball player a tip that almost had disastrous consequences.

“He had been slicing the ball all over the place,” Andrade said. “I told him to try to roll his hands over as he came through. He hit this snap-hook that was so fast and so hard. My wife and mother were standing together, and my wife went one way and my mother the other and the ball went right between them. If it had hit them, it probably would have killed them.”

Golf Notes

Sectional qualifying for the U.S. Public Links tournament will be held Monday and Tuesday at Rancho California. The top four qualifiers will advance to the national championship, July 15-20 at Otter Creek Golf Course in Columbus, Ind. . . . A junior golf clinic for beginning and intermediate golfers 10-17 will be held Saturday, June 29 at 3 p.m. at the Dad Miller course in Anaheim.

Adlinx, a golf association for those involved in the advertising business, will hold its next tournament July 15 at the Pacific Golf Club in San Clemente. Details: Tim Townsend at (818) 765-8699. . . . An L.A. city celebrity tournament to benefit the elderly will be held Monday, July 29, at the California Country Club in Whittier. Details: (213) 485-4884.

The Southern California Left-Handed Golfers Assn. will hold its 1991 tournament Aug. 3-4 at the El Prado Golf Complex in Chino. . . . The San Diego County Junior Golf Assn. will offer free instructional clinics for youngsters 13 and under Thursday and Friday and June 27-28 at 10 county courses. Details: (619) 281-4653. . . . The Greater Los Angeles Golf Invitational, to benefit the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, will be held July 1 at Wood Ranch Golf Club in Simi Valley.

Fifteen local high school students have been awarded college scholarships--totaling $27,500--by the Southern California PGA Charities Corp. The winners and their high schools are Dan Dalton and Blake Alban of Huntington Beach Marina; James Mohon of Bellflower; Steve Bemis of Corona del Mar; Brian Tomooka of Righetti; Raymond Watson of Oak Park; Egan Gost of Lancaster Highland; David Haller of Bakersfield Garces; Shawn Hamilton of Burbank Burroughs; Faith Zamariri of Santa Maria; Steven Scott Golik of Mira Costa; Mike Miller of Hart; Jonathan Nahas of Riverside North; John Kochavatr of Ontario, and Jamie Tierney of Serra.