Couples Saves Day as Stadler, Sauers Share PGA Lead : Golf: Masters champion rallies from triple bogey to be only two back at 69. Daly in trouble at 76.

Some of the best and brightest stars of professional golf dazzled at breezy Bellerive Thursday in the first round of the PGA Championship, but few shone with more brilliance than Masters champion Fred Couples, who, after triple-bogeying the third hole, rallied into contention for the final major championship of the season.

The record will show that Craig Stadler and Gene Sauers, a two-time PGA Tour winner, held the opening-round lead on an unseasonably cool day by shooting four-under-par 67s over the sprawling 7,148-yard Robert Trent Jones layout.

But the focus of many in the swirling gallery of 35,000 was elsewhere, with most eyes on the threesome of 1992 major championship winners--Couples (Masters), Tom Kite (U.S. Open) and Nick Faldo (British Open).

By the time the sun peeked from behind the clouds in the early afternoon, Faldo had finished with a solid 68, among three players one stroke behind the leaders. Couples was in at 69, in a group of six that included his friend and mentor, 49-year-old Raymond Floyd, still dangerous after all these years.

Among the trio, only Kite floundered, and it happened suddenly. Breezing along at one under through 16, he hit a four-wood second shot into the middle of a pond guarding the 536-yard 17th hole and three-putted from 20 feet for a double-bogey seven. At the 454-yard 18th, he drove into the four-inch rough, hacked it out 80 yards into the fairway and missed a 20-foot par putt that left him at two-over 73.

Other players also struggled home.

Defending champion John Daly was all over the place--the towering trees, the yawning traps, the deep rough--with his huge-headed battering ram of a driver and shot 76, with six bogeys.

Paul Azinger was on the leaderboard at three under after 15 holes, then finished bogey, bogey, double bogey for a 72.

And Davis Love III shot 41 on the front side on the way to a dismal 77, looking like so many of the 40 club professionals in the field, most of whom will be going back to their members’ quirky swings and stabbing putts following the cut to the top 70 and ties after the second round today.

Jack Nicklaus put himself in position to make that cut with a 72, as did Tom Watson, trying to win the only major title not yet on his resume. But Arnold Palmer, another non-PGA winner, shot 79.

Also in a group well-positioned at par 71 are former British Open champions Greg Norman and Ian Baker-Finch and ’92 British runner-up John Cook.

Faldo and Couples, ranked 1-2 in the world, are exactly where they would like to be in a tournament that has the potential to determine the game’s best player in 1992. Still, Couples insisted: “I’m not really worried about anyone else. I just want to play well here.”

Couples hasn’t played on the regular Tour since finishing third in the Western Open the first week in July. When last seen at the British Open, he was making a silent getaway after missing the cut. He has spent the last three weeks vacationing in California, said he didn’t play at all the last two weeks and came to St. Louis hoping to regain his lost form for the remainder of the year.

The rust was evident early when he bogeyed the first hole, then offset a birdie at the second by “half-shanking” a seven-iron into the water on the 165-yard third hole. He three-putted from 12 feet, including a miss from 2 1/2 feet for the triple-bogey 6.

“At the time, three-over after three, I thought I’d shoot 80,” he said. “I fought my way back. I putted like a madman.

“After a triple, you start to think all the way to the 18th hole. You’re three over and you don’t really want to be out there. You start thinking about making some birdies, which is not exactly easy at this place.”

But Couples made birdie putts of 25 feet at the fifth and eighth holes, and got to par with a 10-footer at the ninth. At the 456-yard 15th hole, he hit a 320-yard drive and stuck his second shot two feet from the hole for an easy birdie. He was on in two at the dangerous 17th and two-putted for his final birdie, then saved par at 18 with a tough 20-foot putt after driving into a fairway trap and hitting out into a greenside bunker.

“I’m thrilled to death,” Couples said. “Actually it was kind of a fluke, but I’ll take it.”