Troubles Aren’t Unknown to Him

Every year it’s the same. You walk into the press room during the opening round of the U.S. Open and there on the leader board are the mystery guests.

It sets off a press scramble to find out who in the world they are and where they came from. At Winged Foot in ‘84, it was Mike Donald who opened with a 68. In 1950, it was Lee Mackey’s famous 64 at Merion. T.C. Chen’s 65 led at Oakland Hills in 1985. Mike Nicolette’s 68 shook up the field in ’88 and Bob Gajda’s 68 was best ball at Brookline in 1963.

So, it was a case of deja vu for the sporting scribes when they looked up at the red-bedecked leader board Thursday morning and saw where someone named Andy Dillard was taking liberties with Pebble Beach that would have made Ben Hogan blink.

No one ever called Mr. Dillard “the Hawk” or “Slammin’ Andy” or “the Machine,” but he walked out on Pebble’s hallowed turf for his first U.S. Open and only his second tournament this year and proceeded to birdie six holes in a row.

No one else ever started a U.S. Open that way, not Bobby Jones, Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer. This man, whoever he was, stood on the seventh tee six under par for the Open. You would have thought Pebble was a par-three track in Chillicothe.

What you do when this happens is cock your head and wait for the inevitable explosion, wait for the guy to hit the roller skate on the top of a dark stairway. Golfers know that God hates birdies. He may grudgingly yield them to Nicklaus or Byron Nelson or even an occasional run by Bob Goalby. But an Andy Dillard irritates the gods of golf. He birdies at his own risk.

Sure enough, he blew all the way up to a par on the seventh hole. Then he was in a rut. He parred four holes in a row. He finished the front tying the Open record of 30, which has been shot 14 times, and the record of six consecutive birdies, which had been done once, by George Burns in 1982. The golfer, not the comedian.

Andy Warhol once said that everyone was famous for 15 minutes. Apparently, Andy Dillard’s time was up when he hit the back nine at Pebble, a place where, like Castle Dracula, you can hear screams in the night if you listen carefully enough.

You can probably hold the ticker-tape parades. “The Tonight Show” can relax. Andy Dillard seemed to be turning back into a pumpkin on the real golf course at Pebble--the back nine. He got his first bogey at 10, his second at 12, his third at 13.

But just when you would have thought there wouldn’t be enough of him to pick up and put in a bag, he applied the tourniquet. Just as longtime Open watchers were checking their windows, expecting momentarily to see Andy Dillard spiraling downward, he birdied 14, parred 15, and smuggled his 68 through this hall of horrors.

Most of us thought Dillard would be in a stretcher by the 17th hole, but he fought off Pebble valiantly. In 1982, when Burns shot his 30 on the front nine in the Open here, he shot 42 on the back. The last three players to post 30s on an Open front nine--Scott Simpson, Paul Azinger and Peter Jacobsen--shot 36, 36 and 34 respectively on their back nines

Golf is a game in which you can get in an unconscious groove and exceed your capabilities. When Johnny Miller or Jack Nicklaus shoot a 63, it is talent. When an Andy Dillard shoots a 30, you can usually bet he has no clear idea of what he’s doing right.

The scorebooks are full of guys who came crashing to earth the next day. Lee Mackey followed his 64 with an 81. Mike Donald followed his 68 with a 78. And so on.

Andy Dillard kept the wheels on. On the treacherous home nine he made two bogeys and a birdie. That’s like being cut and bleeding but tying up Mike Tyson for the last five rounds after being floored three times.

Andy Dillard may shoot 90 today. But he joined a pantheon of guys who made meteoric appearances in the forefront of the most prestigious tournament in the world.

Sometimes their disappearances are meteoric, too, but Andy Dillard’s 68 was good enough to get him hurried to the interview room after his round, an honor accorded only to those who lead or nearly lead this Open. The two preceding interviewees had been former champions, Curtis Strange and Payne Stewart. Pretty heady company for a guy who was identified as “ Who? “ an hour before.

Gil Morgan, the touring optometrist, was leading the Open at the close of business Thursday. But, while he is not to be confused with Ben Hogan either, he has won seven tournaments and more than $3.5 million and a 66 from him is not stop-the- presses stuff.

Andy Dillard is a round-faced, round-bodied, apple-cheeked 30-year-old pro who looks as if his nickname would be “Chubby. “Or even “Tubby.”

He comes from the Poverty Row section of the great game. He lost his tour card and playing privileges for wretched play in 1988 after two unsuccessful years on the tour and life has been a scramble since.

“I couldn’t make expenses,” he says. “I couldn’t even pay for my car.”

He understands pressure. Lee Trevino once said that pressure is not putting for $50,000 of Bob Hope’s money, pressure was putting for $20 when you didn’t have a quarter in your pocket.

Andy Dillard can relate.

“There were times when I didn’t have a dime in my bank account,” he says.

His golf clubs were his only collateral. He tried to make ends meet with $100 Nassaus at his club in Oklahoma.

“I have lost as much as $1,600,” he confides.

His game atrophied, he says, because of an unhappy romance.

“I got mixed up with a girl and we had a lot of problems,” he says.

Romantic difficulties drive some men to drink. It drove Andy Dillard to double bogeys. His love life was an unplayable lie.

You can see why even Pebble would look like a day at the beach. His attitude was such, he says, that all he could think of before teeing off was that he hoped he could get on television and show the advertisement on his golf cap.

“I heard Titleist pays well for that,” he said, grinning.

His 68 may ultimately be lost in the small print of the record books, as so many have been before. But he had his day. He’ll be in the golf books, forever. It may be some time before anyone starts out his first Open--or even his 30th--birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie again.

* A FAST START

Phil Mickelson is nervous before the round but settles down to card a four-under par 68 in his professional debut. C10