Tournament of Champions : Kite Wants Smooth Ride This Season : Golf: An up-and-down year followed his victory in last year’s T of C. Kite seeks a return to the form that made him the PGA Tour’s leading money-winner.

After Tom Kite won the opening 1991 PGA Tour event last January, the Infiniti Tournament of Champions at La Costa, both his confidence and his expectations soared.

“I was really excited,” Kite said. “I thought last year was going to be one of my best, and it didn’t turn out to be.”

So the apparent fast start for Kite, a 21-year tour veteran, was merely illusory.

He didn’t win another tournament, finished 39th on the earnings list, his lowest ranking since 1973, and failed to make the Ryder Cup team.

“Every once in a while, you need a year like that to spur you on and kick you in the rear,” Kite, 42, said. “The thing that was disappointing was that I was really inconsistent for me. I had a first, second and third, but I didn’t have enough other top-10 finishes (one) to support it.”

Kite is the tour’s all-time leading money-winner with $6,655,474 in official earnings and 15 victories. Year in and year out, he has been a model of consistency.

For example, from 1981 through ‘90, he was among the top 10 on the money-winning list eight times.

In 1989, he earned a record $1,395,278, his total bolstered by victory in the rich Nabisco Championship.

Kite, who will defend his Tournament of Champions title starting Thursday, analyzed his 1991 season.

“I played pretty well through the West Coast tour,” he said. “Then, I went to Florida and didn’t play well there. I didn’t play well again until May, when I had a good shot at winning in Dallas and Atlanta.

“Then, I struggled a little bit. I didn’t hit the ball nearly as well as I did in 1990. But the good thing about it was that my putting started to return.”

Even though his putting betrayed him at the Atlanta tournament in May when he made consecutive three-putt bogeys on the 16th and 17th holes to miss a playoff with Corey Pavin and Steve Pate, he wasn’t dismayed.

“Yes, I missed a couple of putts coming down the stretch, but I made 26 birdies that week,” Kite said. “That was one of the best putting tournaments I’ve had in a long, long time.

Then, there was the unsettling and controversial ruling when Kite was the final-day leader of the Byron Nelson tournament, preceding Atlanta.

On the 11th hole of the final round, Kite drove into a lateral water hazard. Kite believed he was entitled to a drop where his drive entered the water, but a television replay official disagreed, ruling that Kite was not entitled to that option. Kite returned to the tee for his next shot and got a double-bogey six on the hole and eventually finished eighth.

“It was disappointing at the time because I was trying to win the golf tournament, but I don’t think it had any effect on my game after that week,” he said.

However, Kite’s plight ended the experiment of having a rules official monitor golf tournaments on television.

“The good thing about it is that it changed the rules back to where they were,” Kite said. “If the commissioner (Deane Beman) hadn’t panicked, it wouldn’t have been done in the first place.”

There were only three tour members--Pavin, Billy Andrade and Tom Purtzer--who won more than one event last year. Each won two. No one has won more than four tournaments in a season since Tom Watson took six in 1980.

“There are so many good players out there that it’s hard to be a multiple winner,” Kite said. “There’s no comparison of the depth now with when I started out. The good players don’t have as much room to improve. The poorer players have a lot more to improve and, when they improve, they kind of jam everything up.”

John Daly, a tour rookie last year, was the big “jammer.” He captured the admiration of the public with his Paul Bunyan-like drives in winning the PGA Championship.

Asked to comment on Daly’s impact, Kite said: “He did an awful lot for the game of golf. There were also some other players who did some very exciting things. Corey Pavin had a great year. He was the leading money-winner, and what a gutsy player.

“To a certain extent, it’s unfortunate that the public hasn’t been able to grasp hold of other players as they have Daly.

“Certainly, John has a certain charisma. He worked the crowd well while he was winning. And hitting it as far as he does, creates a lot of excitement, too. He probably created more excitement than golf has ever seen in one week. Home runs are more fun to watch than singles.”

Kite, who is not exceptionally long off the tee, has been an effective singles hitter most of his career. Applying baseball parlance to golf, he is usually among the leaders in runs batted in and runs scored.

Now he wants to go back to doing what he does best, usually staying in contention and winning some tournaments, along with more top-10 finishes. “I want 1992 to be a more typical Tom Kite year,” he said. “I don’t get too specific in my goals, but I have high expectations, such as finishing in the top 10 on the money-winning list, winning some tournaments and playing consistent golf again.

“Consistency is the No. 1 thing, which I’ve always been so proud of.”

T of C Tee Times

THURSDAY’S GROUPINGS FIRST TEE

Time Players 9:00 a.m. Tom Kite, Phil Mickelson 9:08 a.m. Lanny Wadkins, Nolan Henke 9:16 a.m. Paul Azinger, Corey Pavin 9:24 a.m. Jay Don Blake, Ted Schulz 9:32 a.m. Rocco Mediate, Steve Pate 9:40 a.m. Andrew Magee, Steve Elkington 9:48 a.m. Davis Love III, Mark Brooks 9:56 a.m. Nick Price, Kenny Perry 10:04 a.m. Tom Purtzer, Billy Andrade 10:12 a.m. Bruce Crampton, Bob Charles 10:20 a.m. Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez 10:28 a.m. Mike Hill, Jim Ferree 10:36 a.m. Charles Coody, Jim Albus 10:44 a.m. Rocky Thompson, Orville Moody 10:52 a.m. Jim Colbert, Al Geiberger 11:00 a.m. Larry Ziegler, George Archer 11:08 a.m. Dale Douglass, Harold Henning 11:16 a.m. Dewitt Weaver, John Brodie 11:24 a.m. Mike Hulbert, Fred Couples 11:32 a.m. Russ Cochran, Bruch Fleisher 11:40 a.m. Dillard Pruitt, Ian Baker-Finch 11:48 a.m. Billy Ray Brown, Brad Faxon 11:56 a.m. John Daly, D.A. Weibring 12:04 a.m. David Peoples, Blaine McCallister 12:12 a.m. Mark O’Meara, Fulton Allen 12:20 a.m. Craig Stadler, Johnny Gonzales

Approximate starting times:

Friday: 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Saturday: 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Sunday: 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.