With This Club, He’s in the Swing : NFL: Quarterback and three-handicap golfer Chris Chandler has found a home in Phoenix, where he is strengthening his grip on the starter’s job.

Chris Chandler carried his dad’s clubs around the course one day 16 years ago and discovered one of the greatest passions of his life. The Phoenix Cardinal quarterback, now a three-handicapper, plays four times a week in the off-season and once a week during the season.

He learned something else that day: He didn’t much care for being a caddie. And the next weekend, he was hitting fairways, not just walking them.

Chandler, a natural athlete, soon had a good grip on his golf game and a number of other games. Hitting drives. Orchestrating drives. Line drives. Driving to the hoop. It was all a snap. He was an All-American in football at Everett (Wash.) High School, where he threw 49 touchdown passes. He was selected to play in the state all-star basketball game. And he lettered in track, baseball and, of course, golf.

He went on to play at the University of Washington and racked up 4,442 yards of total offense, third-most in school history. He finished his career with 26 consecutive starts.

And he was never anyone’s caddie.

Even when he first got to the NFL--where rookie quarterbacks seldom get more than a baseball cap and a clipboard on Sunday--Chandler was wearing an Indianapolis Colts’ helmet and lining up behind center within a month of the 1988 season opener. The youngest starting quarterback in the league, Chandler led the Colts to a 9-4 record after Jack Trudeau injured his knee.

He started the first three games of 1989 before suffering the same fate as Trudeau. Chandler underwent knee surgery and the Colts undertook a new direction, drafting Jeff George.

Chandler likes carrying clipboards less than he likes carrying someone else’s golf clubs, so he asked to be traded. Indianapolis obliged, sending him to Tampa Bay for a first-round draft choice. He thought he would be competing with Vinny Testaverde for the starting job, but Chandler says he’s not really sure what he was doing with the Buccaneers.

“One time, they would tell me I’m supposed to be pushing Vinny and competing against him for the job,” he said. “And then I’m told I’m only there in case of an emergency. Then they start me and then they don’t. It was two years of uncertainty. I really didn’t have any clue as to what my role was.”

In 1990, Chandler started three times and played in seven games. He completed 42 of 83 passes for 464 yards and a touchdown, but was intercepted six times. Testaverde’s completion percentage was slightly better and he threw 17 touchdown passes with 18 interceptions.

So Chandler began the ’91 season as a backup. Now he knew his role . . . and he hated it.

He said Testaverde was a wimp. He said Testaverde was “totally inept” but remained on the field. He said that as a head coach, Richard Williamson was a pretty good receivers coach.

Midway through the season, Chandler was no longer anybody’s caddie. Tampa Bay waived him.

Phoenix lost starter Timm Rosenbach before the the 1991 season. His replacements, Tom Tupa and Stan Gelbaugh, were struggling. So the Cardinals decided to pick up the remainder of Chandler’s salary and take a $229,687.50 chance on him.

He took a month-long crash course in the offense and started the last two games. He completed half his passes and almost helped pull off an upset in Denver.

During his stint with Tampa Bay, Chandler had taken his frustrations out on the golf course. Within hours of the 1990 season finale, he was on a flight home to Washington, where he would immerse himself in soothing fairway green and not come up for air until he had to report to training camp.

Like most coaches, Phoenix’s Joe Bugel says players don’t lose their starting jobs because of injury, so Chandler figured to be back at backup this year. He didn’t run and hide this spring, however, and it probably has a lot to do with why he’s playing. Chandler, who took over for the injured Rosenbach in the first game of the season, is still starting even though Rosenbach has been ready to return for a month.

“I think it was the biggest turnaround in his life,” Bugel said. “He moved here and stays here year round. He became a locker room bum. He wanted to learn how to play the game and we took the time with him on the field.

“I’ll tell you what, you could just see the guy growing in leaps and bounds. He realized this is a big-time business and if he was going to make his move in the NFL, he was going to have to work at least 10 months out of the year.”

Somehow, Chandler was able to maintain his golf game and expand his football expertise. He calls it the “most important off-season of my career.”

“The last 2 1/2 years, things haven’t really gone very well for me and this is kind of like a new start for me here,” he said. “I’m with a coach who is very good, (offensive coordinator) Jerry Rhome, and I’m in an offense that’s really good. I’m in a position now where I feel like I can succeed.

“In Tampa, I really didn’t feel that good about how I was playing. (But) I spent the whole off-season here and that helped me tremendously.”

The Cardinals are 2-6, but the Phoenix staff seems generally pleased with the play of their quarterback.

Rhome, who has worked with Troy Aikman, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, Mark Rypien, Jay Schroeder and Dave Krieg, says Chandler is probably the smartest quarterback he has ever been around. And at the bottom line, Bugel firmly believes the Cardinals can win with the level of play they’re getting from the quarterback.

“He definitely looks like a starting quarterback to me,” Ram Coach Chuck Knox said after watching films in preparation for Sunday’s game against Phoenix at Anaheim Stadium. “He’s throwing the ball very well. He’s scrambling very well. He’s running the bootleg very well. He’s making things happen.”

Chandler completed 19 of 33 passes for 197 yards and three touchdowns last week as the Cardinals upset San Francisco. He also scrambled three times for 33 yards and twice picked up first downs in third-and-long situations.

The week before against the Saints, he was 19 of 30 for 218 yards and two touchdowns. And during a 30-21 loss at Dallas, he threw for 383 yards. He had to be helped from the field in the third quarter after receiving a ferocious blow from Tony Tolbert, but returned moments later to lead Phoenix on consecutive scoring drives.

“He’s throwing the ball with a great deal of accuracy and he’s really into things,” Bugel said. “He’s proven to be a really tough guy, too. He’s taken some hellacious hits and kept on ticking. He’s our starting quarterback now and we’re real proud of him.”

Chandler has completed more than 60% of his passes this year for 1,563 yards with 11 touchdowns--one more passing touchdown than the Cardinals had in all of 1991--and only five interceptions. The marked improvement can be attributed in large part to a mind-set that goes with being No. 1 on the depth chart.

“I haven’t been in this position since going into my second year with the Colts before I got hurt,” Chandler said, “but I’m so much better a player now than I was then that it’s not even close.

“It does feel good when you can go into each week preparing to play and expecting to play. I haven’t played this consistently or with this much confidence in my whole career.”

Bugel says one of the biggest differences is Chandler’s evolution from thrower to passer. Chandler threw 31 interceptions in 29 games during his first four years in the league, an average of one interception per 18 attempts. During one stretch this season, he threw 84 passes without an interception.

And even this transition can be linked to Chandler’s job security.

“Before, I was always in the position where I felt like I had to make a bunch of big plays and I was just kind of throwing the ball everywhere,” he said. “You gain confidence and you become a better passer, but it’s also a matter of working at it and understanding the game better.

“You have to discipline yourself not to get greedy and force things. Jerry has drilled it into my head that it’s a one-down-at-a-time game. Even if it’s third-and-long and the read tells you to dump it off to the back two yards down the field, that’s what you do. And our guys have been doing a good job of getting the first downs in those situations.”

Chandler has realized that this take-what-you’re-given philosophy not only helps move the chains, it can also lower your score on the links. He always used to reach for the driver--after all, he won the long-driving contest at a charity tournament with a 331-yarder--but these days he’s liable to take a three-quarter swing with a three-wood.

As a result, no matter which kind of cleated shoes he puts on, he’s playing better than ever.