Faldo Is Up a Tree on the Fabled 14th : Golf: When no ball shakes loose from the oak, he gets a triple-bogey eight en route to a 76.

Plans for Natalie and Matthew Faldo’s treehouse on the family estate in Windlesham, England, took a giant step forward Friday. Father Nick’s odds of winning the U.S. Open didn’t fare as well.

But then, that’s what happens when Daddy spends part of his workday looking for his ball after scaling the limbs of a stately oak on the 14th hole of the Pebble Beach Golf Links. While he was there, he might as well have tossed a rope over a branch and hanged his chances of winning his first U.S. Open championship.

“I’ll dig that tree up and plant it in my garden,” Faldo said of Friday’s botanical nightmare.

One minute Faldo was two under par, within viewing distance of the leaders. Later, after hitting his third shot into the upper reaches of the unsuspecting tree, Faldo was well on his way to a round-killing triple-bogey on the 565-yard par-five.

In no time at all, he had become another victim of Pebble’s quirky history, which isn’t such a bad thing. After all, this is the place where Champagne Tony Lema, while playing in the 1957 Bing Crosby Pro-Am, slipped off the cliff bordering the ninth hole and fell 18 feet to the rocky beaches.

It is where Jimmy Johnston, while competing in the 1929 U.S. Amateur, waded into the surf off the 18th hole, found his ball, waited until the waves subsided and then hit his third shot near the green.

And it is where Arnold Palmer lost the 1967 Crosby to Jack Nicklaus when he knocked not one, but two shots off a tree and out of bounds on a single hole. Later that night, that same tree was uprooted by a violent storm, causing observers to wonder if God or Palmer had been responsible.

The hole? No. 14.

Faldo should have been so lucky.

“I was playing all right up to then,” Faldo said. “I was going along all right, I thought.”

This much was true. Fewer than six shots behind leader Gil Morgan as he arrived on the 14th tee, Faldo was in a decent position to secure a comfortable place on the leader board. He hit a three-wood into the fairway, a three-iron into the rough and a nine-iron into the darkness of the oak tree.

“I’ve never done that before,” he said. “Never in my whole career.”

Faldo had two choices: He could take a stroke-and-distance penalty for a lost ball or a one-shot penalty for an unplayable lie. To be safe, he hit a provisional ball--into a bunker--and then, after a running start, made his way up the tree in search of his ball and, if all went well, only a one-stroke penalty.

“Where the hell’s Jane?” yelled Britain’s Tarzan as he shook a branch in hopes that a ball would drop loose.

No such luck. His provisional shot--his fifth on the disastrous hole--would have to do. Worse yet, Faldo had more worries on his mind, such as. . . .

“How the hell do I get down?”

Faldo shinnied down part of the main trunk, grabbed a branch about 10 feet above ground and let go. Not bad for someone who hadn’t been tree climbing since, he said, “I was in short trousers.”

Observing the drama from nearby was playing partner Mark Calcavecchia, who was equally busy crippling his own chances for an Open title. Seven under par after six holes, Calcavecchia finished the round only one under for the tournament.

But even Calcavecchia found it hard to suppress a grin when recalling the sight of Faldo, two-time Masters champion, scurrying up the tree like an oversized squirrel. Funny. But not funny enough to make Calcavecchia forget a 40 on the back nine.

“I would have thought it was funny if he fell out,” Calcavecchia said.

With no option other than to play the provisional shot, Faldo blasted out of the bunker and two-putted for an eight, golf’s hated snowman. A day earlier, he had recorded a birdie on the same hole.

The three-shot swing was especially damaging because it came on the back nine, where Pebble Beach rarely gives back strokes.

“You can’t exactly say, ‘Fine, I’ll go ahead and birdie the next four,’ ” Faldo said.

So Faldo did what he could, which was to try to maintain his composure and keep the bleeding to a minimum. Even after bogeying the 16th hole and finishing with a 76 and a two-day total of 146, he was surprisingly cheerful.

“I’m still here,” he said.

That he is. Granted, he finds himself well behind the leaders, but considering the circumstances, it could have been worse. A few more strokes and he would have been on plane headed for Windlesham today.

“The next two days are going to be a long haul,” he said of his chances. “I’m not wishing ill on anyone, (but) I still think five, six under could win this.”

Whatever happens, Faldo has an appointment to keep with his two young children. They want a treehouse. And fast.

And after Friday’s round, Faldo will be the first to admit he has been in a position to build one.