O’Grady Fires a 69 to Capture Shortened County Open : Golf: Former PGA Tour player and ’87 TOC winner scrambles for a final-round 69 to triumph in tournament shortened by weather.

After winning his first golf tournament in four years, Mac O’Grady on Friday was equally happy to learn that his long-time nemesis, PGA Commissioner Deane Beman, had been stung.

On the day O’Grady won the 63rd annual Buie San Diego County Open by shooting a three-under-par 69, he learned his former pals on the PGA Tour decided to form a union.

“Finally,” O’Grady said, “players will have this bureaucracy they can turn to to fight off this pseudo-bureaucracy they’ve had out there for years.”

Ah, a vintage O’Grady swing.

The 40-year-old who lives in Palm Springs took a few others Friday--on and off Torrey Pines South course.

His hard-fought, nearly catastrophic 69 gave him a two-round final of 136, one stroke ahead of three others.

In three separate foursomes, Terry Price of Australia, Willie Kane of Tucson, Ariz., and Jeff Brehaut of Vacaville kept waiting for O’Grady to lose his head and the lead. But Price, Kane and Brehaut each came away as runner-ups. Craig Anderson of Fallbrook was the low amateur with a one-under 143.

Twice on the back nine, O’Grady stumbled terribly, first pushing a fairway drive on hole No. 13 out of bounds, and then botching a one-foot tap-in on No. 17.

After taking a stroke and re-hitting from the fairway on No. 13, O’Grady escaped with a bogey. He managed to make up for his carelessness by making a five-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th hole to win.

“When Mac hit that advance shot out of bounds (on 13),” Price said, “we all thought we had a chance at that point.”

But O’Grady, a former PGA Tour player, kept his composure, nailing pars on the next three holes.

“The one advantage I have is experience,” said O’Grady, the 1987 Tournament of Champions winner. “I’ve been out there (in that situation) before. The best thing I’ve learned in 10 years on the tour is that all good pros have 10 levels of patience. After that out-of-bounds shot, I was at patience level No. 6.”

If ever there was a tournament for O’Grady to win, this was it.

He entered the draw 30 minutes before deadline on Tuesday, then nearly killed himself driving to the tournament on Wednesday. Run off the freeway by another motorist, O’Grady said his car skidded and came “inches” from colliding with an abandoned car on the shoulder. He then discovered his two front tires had been punctured.

That was nothing, he said, compared to last week just before the start of the Greater Hartford Open.

After watching a show on PBS about a guy in the 19th century having hot wax poured in his ear to remedy an infection, O’Grady said he woke up two hours later with his first ear infection since he underwent four ear operations as a child. Because of those early problems, he said, he is 70% deaf in one ear.

The next day, as he drove to the doctor’s office to have his ear checked, he said the transmission on his tournament-loaned “courtesy” car broke down, and he had to push the car about 100 yards to safety.

Doing that, triggered a recurring back injury which forced him to leave the PGA Tour four years ago. He said his back problems also stem from a childhood condition.

“My life has been like that since Day 1,” he said. “I was a breach baby.”

When O’Grady finally arrived at Torrey Pines on Wednesday, he soon learned the tournament had been delayed twice for lightning and wet conditions, and he felt fortunate to finish his first round, a five-under 67, as darkness approached.

After Thursday’s second round had to be scrubbed because of intense fog, players were informed the field would be cut to 60 professionals and 10 amateurs and the purse reduced so as to allocate partial refunds to those golfers who only got one round in and did not make the cut.

How much, in either case, has yet to be determined.

Instead of playing for $8,000, players had no idea what the winner’s share would be and still don’t. Just as well, O’Grady said, he doesn’t need the money. He was merely playing for fun.

And an encore?

“I will come back and play next year as defending champion, and I will play left-handed,” O’Grady said.

Don’t chuckle, just yet.

While O’Grady drives and chips from a right-handed stance, he putts using a left-handed stroke, and many say he is equally good playing entirely left-handed.

He said he will test that theory when he returns as a lefty to the PGA Tour in January 1994.

By then, he said, he should be completely transformed.