GOLF / SENIORS AT INDIAN WELLS : Aaron Keeps It Going With Second 65 in a Row

There is a tendency in golf to discount a hot round by a player who seldom wins a tournament.

Therefore, prospects were that Tommy Aaron would fold in the second round of the $500,000 Vintage Arco Invitational Saturday.

The 55-year-old Georgian, who hasn’t won a tournament on the PGA Senior Tour, fooled people.

Even winds up to 20 m.p.h. that swirled around the 6,900-yard Vintage Club course did not deter Aaron.

He shot his second consecutive seven-under-par 65 for a two-round score of 130, a tournament record and good enough to lead Mike Hill by three shots. Lee Trevino and Jim Colbert are at 136. Dale Douglass is at 137, and Chi Chi Rodriguez and Simon Hobday are at 138, six under par.

For the second day in a row, Hobday and Aaron were in the same threesome. Friday Aaron made a hole in one on the seventh hole. Saturday, despite a strong wind in his face, Hobday made a hole in one on the same hole.

Aaron hasn’t won a tournament since the 1973 Masters. On the 50-and-older tour he has never finished better than third.

“I didn’t have a problem finding my way to the interview again, but I don’t know what I’ll do tonight to get ready,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll do anything different to prepare than I did the last two nights.

“All I can do is play the best I can and not worry about what anyone else does.

“There are a couple of things I know. One, I am playing better. I started improving last year. Also, I need the money. My wife and I just bought a new house and my daughter is getting married May 2.”

Hill, who birdied four of the last six holes, can empathize with Aaron.

“There will be real pressure on Tommy tomorrow,” Hill said. “Until you win that first one, the last few holes can be brutal.

“I won almost $500,000 in my first year (1989), but I didn’t win a tournament. Money isn’t really the object out here. It’s the pride of winning.

“When I finally won at Tampa in 1990, the last three holes were terrible. If anyone says it isn’t pressure, they’re lying.”

Hill, the leading money winner last year, has won 10 senior events. He and Colbert, who has won four tour events in just over a year, will put pressure on Aaron in the final threesome.

Hill believes No. 16, the 406-yard par-four with water on the right and desert rocks on the left, will determine his chances.

“Until today I had never even birdied the hole,” he said. “The year Trevino beat me out, I was four over the three times I played it. And last year, when Chi Chi beat me, I was three over.

“The wind was with us on the hole today, and it made it easier. I made a good approach and sank an eight-foot putt.

“I hope to go out and shoot a 66 or 67 and, if I lose, I will feel I did the best I could.”

Although he missed birdie putts on the eighth and 14th holes, Hill’s only poor hole was No. 9, a 552-yard par-five that lends itself to birdies. He hit his drive into the rough on the right, hit out short of the green and missed a four-foot putt to make bogey.

“It was strictly a mental error,” he said.

Aaron had only one birdie on the front side, but birdied five of the last six holes for a 30 on the back nine. He made short putts for the birdies on 13, 14 and 15 but was spectacular with his putting on the last two holes. He made a 25-foot lag putt down the hill on 17, then sank a 15-footer on 18 for his 130, two shots better than Orville Moody’s record 132 in 1988.