Mallon Has Turned Up the Heat This Year : Women’s golf: After winning two major tournaments in a three-week span, she sets her sights on the Los Coyotes LPGA event.

The prospect of playing in a $350,000 golf tournament in 90- to 100-degree temperatures this week only brings a smile to Meg Mallon’s freckled face.

“This isn’t even close to what we played in at Ft. Worth (in the U.S. Women’s Open) last July,” she said after finishing 18 holes of a practice round in stifling midday heat at the Los Coyotes Country Club. “It was 120 in Texas, and the sun actually burnt you, no matter what you did. And two weeks before that, in the LPGA Championship (at Bethesda, Md.), it was so humid it was brutal.

“This isn’t bad at all, although the girls have gotten used to cool weather the last three weeks, playing in Portland, Vancouver and Seattle. It’s pretty hot here, but if it doesn’t get any worse, it won’t be bad. It’s tougher on the spectators than it is on us.”

Mallon won the LPGA and the Women’s Open in torrid temperatures.

She will be one of the favorites when 144 women professionals tee off today in the MBS LPGA tournament at Los Coyotes, a 6,356-yard, par-72 course in Buena Park. Mallon’s victories made her the first woman to win the LPGA and Open in the same year since Sandra Haynie in 1974.

“I like the course layout here at Los Coyotes, but it’s a place you don’t want to get in the rough,” she said. “The ball lies down in the grass, and although it doesn’t look difficult, it is, to hit it out of there the way you want. You hit one in the rough and figure it’s going to be a one-shot penalty.

“The greens are outstanding. I was here last spring for an outing, and they must have been playing six or seven temporaries. Three of the greens were being completely rebuilt, and I never thought they would be ready for our tournament, but they are great.”

Mallon tied for 41st in 1989 and tied for 11th last year in this tournament.

Nancy Lopez, who won both previous Los Coyotes events, is sitting this one out as she and her husband, former baseball player Ray Knight, are expecting their third child the first week of November. She will be present, however, as tournament hostess.

Mallon, 28, is being projected as the next potential LPGA magnet player, filling the role Lopez has held for so long. Golf Digest went so far as to call her the “Next Nancy” after she won two women’s majors in a three-week span.

Mallon has won $494,692 this year, more than double her previous career earnings of $198,529.

“I’m still getting used to the feeling,” she said about her double success after having won only one tournament before. Mallon had been a professional for four years before she won her first outing this season, the Oldsmobile tournament at Lake Worth, Fla.

“Winning my first definitely put me in a position where I was ready when the opportunity came in the LPGA,” she said. “Actually, I probably started getting ready last year when I finished third (in the Rail Charity tournament) after being in the lead for the first time. I was tied on 18 and drove into the woods and finished two shots out.

“I know it sounds funny for someone who has played golf a long time, but before you’ve won--or been in a position to win--it can make you extremely nervous to be under par. It’s part of growing up as a professional, I guess. Blowing that chance last year helped when I got in the same position in the Oldsmobile.”

Mallon was leading after seven holes when rain postponed the final round. She came back on Monday and played well until she bogeyed the 16th hole to drop into a tie.

“That was a make-or-break situation for me then,” she said. “I hit a five-wood over water on the 17th hole to four feet and sank the birdie putt, and on 18 I hit a three-iron about five feet from the pin and made that. I won by two. Winning your first tournament is a moment you never forget, not even after you’ve won a couple of majors.”

Her victory in the LPGA Championship was even more dramatic. She was playing in the final threesome with Pat Bradley, a future Hall of Famer, and Ayako Okamoto, Japan’s best golfer and 1987 LPGA player of the year.

Mallon, Bradley and Okamoto were tied on the 18th hole, and after the other two players missed birdie putts, Mallon rolled in a 12-footer to win.

“Winning the LPGA, the way I did, was so exciting,” she said. “The Open was an entirely different story. It was an endurance test. . . . I never really thought a lot about winning, especially after Friday when I made two double bogeys and shot 75. I just kept telling myself to hang in there.”

She won by shooting a four-under-par 67 Sunday to move past Bradley and Amy Alcott.

Last year, before Mallon had won anything, she was voted the tour’s “friendliest player” in a poll of the players. She was born in Natick, Mass., where she became a die-hard Boston Celtic fan; grew up in Birmingham, Mich.; attended Ohio State, where she was runner-up in the 1985 Big Ten tournament; moved to Ramona, Calif., with her parents after they retired, and now lives in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“Influences in my life?” she repeated the question. “Well, you have to start with my parents. They both played golf and got me interested. . . . They have been very supportive.

“Then there were the Celtics, especially K.C. Jones. My father was close friends with most of the Celtics when we lived in Massachusetts, and Bob Cousy and K.C. and a lot of the other guys practically lived at our place. . . . Even today, K.C. is a big influence. We’ve only played golf a few times, but he keeps in touch and has been very helpful in things like telling me how to live out of a suitcase on tour.

“Whenever Seattle is playing in a town near where we’re playing, he’ll come and watch me play. And I’m at every SuperSonics game I can manage.”