GOLF ROUNDUP : TV Viewers Call, Beck Is Penalized

As Rocco Mediate was talking about how weight loss has helped his golf game, phone calls made Chip Beck’s day a lot heavier.

Mediate shot a three-under-par 69 Saturday for a 207 total and a one-stroke lead after three rounds of the Greater Greensboro Open. Beck might have been alongside but for a two-shot penalty assessed when an apparent rule violation was caught on national television and PGA officials were notified.

In trying to line up his second shot from the woods on the 15th hole, Beck removed an out-of-bounds stake. His move was caught on television, which prompted telephone calls to the PGA headquarters at the course.

“You can’t take that stake and push it over just a little bit, or you can’t pull it out. That’s removing it,” PGA tournament supervisor Wade Cagle said. “He removed the stake. That was the violation. Putting it back, that was too late. It’s a two-stroke penalty.”

Cagle said Beck consulted with PGA officials after removing the stake and put it back. He wanted to know if he could remove it and the official said no.

Asked if the penalty would have been assessed had it not been spotted on television, Cagle said: “You can only operate on the facts that you have. If you don’t have the facts, you can’t do anything.”

Beck was assessed the penalty at 16, where he had already made bogey. Then he bogeyed his final hole to fall back to five-under-par 211, four shots behind, after a round of 75.

“I thought I might be able to move it because it was movable,” Beck said of the marker. “If I stood there, I was going to move it anyway. I just made a mistake.”

Mike Reid, Brad Faxon and Tom Byrum are a shot behind Mediate.

Defending champions Lee Trevino and Mike Hill had six birdies in a row and eight overall on the back nine to move into the lead in the $770,000 Legends of Golf senior tour event at Austin, Tex.

Trevino and Hill birdied every back-side hole except the 420-yard 16th, shooting a 12-under-par 60. Their three-round total of 186 gave them a four-shot lead in the two-man, better-ball tournament. Jim Colbert and Tommy Aaron were alone in second at 26-under 190.

Dana Lofland battled wind and chill to shoot a one-under-par 71 and take a one-stroke after two rounds of the $525,000 Sara Lee Classic at Nashville, Tenn.

Lofland was at eight-under-par 136 for two rounds. Tina Barrett, Brandi Burton and Dawn Coe are tied for second.