Leader Puts a Dent in Rancho With 63 : Senior golf: Big hitter ties the course record to move in front, but there are plenty of challengers.

Jim Dent is the Senior PGA Tour’s big hitter.

Dent, averaging 283.8 yards on his drives, leads the $600,000 Ralphs Senior Classic after two rounds of the 54-hole event at Rancho Park Golf Course.

He tied the tournament record with an eight-under-par 63 and is 11 strokes under par, but his 131 is only one shot in front.

Dent, bidding for his second victory of the year, is facing severe competition. Most of the top players on the tour and quite a few others are within four shots of him.

Gary Player and first-round leader Rocky Thompson are at 132, Raymond Floyd, Isao Aoki, Al Kelley and Tommy Aycock are at 133, Dale Douglass and J.C. Snead are at 134 and five others, including Lee Trevino and Mike Hill, are another shot back.

“It will be a shootout tomorrow,” said Dent, “but it’s that way almost every week. Twice recently I’ve been up close and the last round was rained out. I wouldn’t mind if it started raining and didn’t stop until tomorrow night.”

Dent tied the mark set by Hill in winning the tournament in 1990 and tied by DeWitt Weaver last year.

All the leaders except Player, smaller and a little older (almost 57) than most of the other contenders, have been piling up birdies and some eagles on the par-five holes. Player is doing it with a putter given to him by Allen Paulson, owner of the outstanding thoroughbred Arazi.

Player, who made birdie putts of 40, 15, 12 and 10 feet on his way to a six-under 65, tried the putter when Paulson played with him Monday.

“I liked the feel of it,” Player said, “so he gave it to me.

“Sports is so much about confidence. There’s nothing unusual about this putter. It just feels right and I keep dropping putts. I had 67s in two rounds in the pro-am and again yesterday. It just feels like I can’t miss.

“My only misses came on the two par-fives on the front side. Others reach them in two shots, but I chipped close and missed a two-footer and a six-footer.”

Player, who had a record string of 18 years winning tournaments on the regular tour, has won each year on the 50-and-older circuit beginning in 1985, but he hasn’t won this year.

“With all I’ve accomplished, I’m not about to put pressure on myself,” he said. “It would just be a nice bonus.”

A victory is also important to Floyd. The senior rookie will be playing in the Tour Championship, the richest event on the regular tour, next week. But he needs a victory or second-place finish in this event to qualify for the Senior Tour Championship in December in Puerto Rico.

“I have been playing just beautifully,” Floyd said after a 65 Saturday. “My putting has been keeping me from winning.

“When you are having trouble putting, you put extra pressure on the rest of your game. I decided to forget mechanics and just putt.

“I had not made a putt longer than six feet, but it changed on the first hole today. I had an 18-foot downhill putt and when it went in it was a big lift.

“I sank a couple of other putts and made only one bad shot all day. On 17, a par-three, I hit a terrible three-iron and wound up with a bogey.”

Thompson and his playing partners in the final group, Kelley and Aycock, didn’t let the pressure get to them.

Aycock, a non-winner, and Kelley, who won once, in 1990, during eight years on the tour, followed first-round 66s with 67s and are only two shots out of the lead.

Thompson was tied for the lead with Dent until an incident on the final hole.

Thompson, who has a Big Bertha driver with a 50-inch shaft and a putter with a 48-inch handle, was playing long ball right with Dent. But on the last hole Thompson pushed his drive to the right. The ball hit a spectator, possibly on the head, caromed into the trees and the shaken Thompson wound up with a bogey to drop to 10 under.

“I didn’t care about the bogey, but I sure thought I hurt someone,” Thompson said. “But my caddie told me the guy wasn’t hurt and he just disappeared. I can’t believe that didn’t hurt.”

Thompson, whose 297-yard drive on No. 2 was the longest measured shot of the round, loves to hit long drives.

“I can’t hit with Jim (Dent), but I can really hit it downtown,” he said. “I don’t always know where, but I hit it downtown.

“Some people think Jim can hit with John Daly. Maybe not, but he’s bigger and stronger. He doesn’t even try to hit the ball hard but it goes downtown.”

Golf Notes

Jim Ferree made a par on the first extra hole to beat J.C. Goosie to win his third Vantage Classic. Ferree and Goosie tied at four-under 138 in the event within an event for the 60-and-over group. Ferree won the $11,000 top prize for the third time this season.