It’s Just Plain Wide Open Now

The 66th Los Angeles Open, which is being held this week at Riviera, is, by all odds, the most venerable one-city tournament on the tour. The Masters is a baby by comparison. No community can come close. Coolidge was President when this thing started.

It used to be won by giants, locker room, if not household, names. You go down the list. Macdonald Smith, Lighthorse Harry Cooper, Bobby Cruikshank, Craig Wood. Jimmy Demaret. Then, you knew if Byron Nelson didn’t win it, Ben Hogan would. Or Sam Snead. A dark horse would be someone like Jug McSpaden. When an “unknown” won it, he would turn out to be Tommy Bolt.

Either the L.A. Open has changed, or golf has. When “unknowns” win it today, they stay unknown. Sometimes they never win another tournament (David Edwards). Sometimes, it’s the only tournament they ever won (T.C. Chen, Pat Fitzsimons). The game has become as formless as a county fair claiming race.

It has gotten so you know what to expect. The unexpected. The onetime inconceivable. So, this is what to look for this week at Riviera.

1. Someone no one ever heard of will be the first-round leader. In the press tent, an exasperated cry will be heard: “Anybody here got anything on an Emlyn Aubrey--like who is he, how did he get here and what in the world do I say about him? Help!”

2. Someone with a sponsor’s exemption, which means he got in the field on a pass rather than earn his way in, will shoot 65-65 while a guy who has won 20 tournaments including three majors will miss the cut. This will prompt an old-timer to sniff “Hogan would never miss a cut.”

3. A TV announcer will explain “He’s got 240 to the middle of the green. He’s hitting a four-iron.” Around the country, weekend players will gnash their teeth. “Two-forty? That’s not a four-iron! That’s a three-wood and a four-iron!”

4. On a green, a player will have a 3 1/2-footer with a cleat mark and two breaks in its line and on TV the announcer will say: “He’s got a tap-in for his par.” And a pro overhearing this will come over and offer him his putter and recommend: “I’d like to see if you could get that ‘tap-in’ down in two!”

5. One of the “foot soldier” TV announcers out on the course will survey a golfer’s lie in the deep rough, blocked by two trees and will tell the world: “He’s got no chance. He’s in jail. All he can do is try to knock it back to the fairway with a wedge and start over again.” Whereupon, the golfer will promptly smoke a four-iron right up on the green. It might even go in.

6. Twelve players will eagle the par-five first hole, and 12 others will have eagle putts. A hundred members who could never break seven on that hole will burst into tears. When someone suggests they toughen up that hole, they will tell him through clenched teeth “Listen! The only way that hole could be toughened would be to put quicksand in the traps, wolf packs in the fairway and wax the greens. Even then, some club pro from Chillicothe will probably make 2!”

7. In alluding in print to last year’s winner, Ted Schulz, 75 people will misspell his last name. Several others will have to look up his first name.

8. A player who just finished his round bogey-bogey-bogey will come off the 18th cursing the course. “It favors a fader, and I draw the ball,” he will complain. Meanwhile, back on the green, a guy who just finished birdie-birdie-birdie for a 64 will come in praising the course. “I can get away with my little hook swing,” he will tell reporters. “This course favors a guy who can draw the ball.”

9. A player who has a temperature of 98.6, a pulse in the 50s and no noticeable white fur on his tongue will nevertheless suddenly notice he has flu on No 2. He lies five in the sand trap, and he has just double-bogeyed No. 1. The only symptom will be the double-bogey, but it is well-known the double-bogey is a major cause of unexpected viral flu in this country, ranking with open-window draughts and post-nasal drips and the player will walk off the course. Someone will point out he had a bad lie in the trap. They will not mean his ball, they will mean his words.

10. Two guys will threaten Lanny Wadkins’ tournament record of 264. One will have had only 17 putts in 16 holes, and the other will have had four chip-ins and one ball that ricocheted off a spectator onto the green to within four feet of the hole. Both will be 20-year-old first-year players. One will say, “I’ve learned to be patient out there.” The other will say: “Who’s Lanny Wadkins?”

11. Some 40,000 people will show up for the final day--39,000 of them will be stomping around asking, “Which one’s John Daly?” He will have a gallery 10 times that of the eventual winner, even if he shoots 80.

12. At the presentation ceremony, the winner will thank God, his second-grade teacher, his putter, his parents, his coach, his hypnotist and the sponsors but will forget the 200 guys who volunteered to come and hold the ropes, marshal the galleries, keep the scores and man the scoreboards and who serve free of charge, performing services that cost other sports millions of dollars. The nearest thing to recognition any of them will get is when a golfer finds his play impeded by a crowd around his ball in a tree well, and he’ll shout, “Where are the damn marshals?”

13. A player who doesn’t hit a fairway or a green will have a 66, while a guy who hits 14 fairways and 16 greens will have a 76, proving once again that God hates golfers. Probably jealous.