This Is Right Up His Alley

For 45 years, Riviera Country Club has been known in golf lore as “Hogan’s Alley.” It was here the legendary Ben won two L.A. Opens and a U.S. Open, broke the L.A. tournament record, broke the U.S. Open record and, in general, played it as if it were his own marked deck, and became a legend.

For 40 years, no one came close. No one won back-to-back L.A. Opens there. Young players took liberties with it. No-names won, but so did big names--Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Lanny Wadkins.

But no one appeared about to take Riviera by the hair and drag it to its cave. It remained “Hogan’s Alley.”

Until now. With due respect to Hogan, Riviera is in danger of becoming “Couples’ Corner.”

Fred Couples is about as un-Hogan-like as you can get. Where Ben stalked a course with the grim demeanor of a G-man after a public enemy or Captain Ahab after Moby Dick, Fred Couples wanders along more like a guy who has showed up at Riviera’s door with a box of flowers and a ticket to a concert.

Freddy loves Riviera. So did Hogan. So does everybody who appreciates golf and is sick and tired of drive-and-an-eight-iron golf. So does everyone who ever smiled behind their hands when a tee shot went into the trees, or an iron flew over a green and a golf course fought back. They like players who can not only outslug it but outwit it. Like Hogan. And like Couples.

They call him “Boom-Boom.” They used to accuse him of playing a kind of carefree, reckless golf. They said he played well because he just didn’t understand the situation. They said he was the only golfer out there who wouldn’t throw a club because he didn’t care that much. They said he was playing golf only because it beat driving a truck.

That was about 50 tournaments ago. That was nine victories ago, one Masters--and two L.A. Opens at Riviera.

You don’t win at Riviera playing careless golf. You don’t cruise around these 18 holes without stopping to think. You don’t just bop Riviera over the head with long drives and short putts. There are subtleties.

Oh, you can bring it to its knees if the sun shines, no winds blow and the ball rolls and you can play in shirt-sleeves and work up a sweat. St. Andrews is a piece of cake under those conditions.

You can’t go to sleep over a three-foot putt. You can’t really let out the shaft. There’s only one place to be on most holes and, if you’re not there, you scramble for a par or make five or six.

It’s probably where Fred Couples, so to speak, grew up. Matured. Showed the golf world he was something more than a guy who might hit it 290 off the tee--and then mis-club himself to the green.

If Fred Couples wins this year’s Los Angeles Open--and at the close of business Saturday he was one of four tied for the lead with 18 to play--he will be the first since Hogan to win back-to-back here. And the first since Hogan to win three here.

If there’s an easy hole out there at Riviera, golf hasn’t found it.

The fourth hole at Riviera is a pastoral setting. Like a Monet. There’s not a tree or pool of water on it. It’s innocent-looking--like the choirboy who turns out to be a murderer. It’s actually a serial killer.

The card says it is 238 yards. About 200 of it appears to be sand in front.

It has ruined more reputations than an office Christmas party. It has blood all over it from the golfers it has stabbed in the back this week.

Hogan said that, when the wind blew, this was the toughest par-three in America.

The wind blew this week. Not a gale. Just a chilly off-the-ocean bracer that made you drop down one club and try to think positively as you went into your lunge.

John Daly might be leading this tournament if he knew how to play No. 4. John has toured this par-three in five-five this week. Double-bogey, double-bogey. Slash-your-wrists time.

How about Jim McGovern? He got lucky and shot a two on the fourth hole Thursday. Yesterday, he shot a five. He’s one shot out of the lead.

Jay Don Blake? He birdied the hole in round one. He bogeyed it Saturday.

Donnie Hammond is a co-leader. He went four-four on the fourth this week.

Fred Couples, the one-time “What hole is this anyway?” ho-hum, leave-a-wake-up-call Fred Couples played this hole in a heady three-three. He didn’t try to handcuff it, he simply tried to tiptoe past it. He played a two-iron for a par, not a three-wood for a miracle.

Freddy, characteristically, is not sure why he plays Riviera so well. “I think,” he says earnestly, “it’s because it reminds me of Seattle, of the courses I played in growing up in Seattle.”

Not likely. Riviera won’t remind you of any place, unless it’s the gas chamber at San Quentin.

Fred Couples has been seventh, first, 12th and first at Riviera in the past few years because he has begun to think his way around a golf course, not bludgeon his way.

Riviera this week is the kind of course where the leader board looks like a U.S. Open, where a Tom Kite, seemingly hopelessly out of it at three over par in mid-round Saturday, could catch the field because the players ahead of him were struggling home with hollow eyes.

A 54-hole tournament, as this has become, probably would annoy Ben Hogan. It put 56 golfers within five shots of the lead Saturday night (and 36 within four). A cavalry charge like that can make the final 18 a crapshoot.

Couples, like Hogan, would probably prefer 36 more holes to sort out the ribbon clerks. But Freddy doesn’t dwell on minor nuisances.

No one is likely to start calling him “The Hawk.” He’s still four U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, one British Open and one Masters behind Hogan.

But Hogan was 36 when he began his U.S. Open run. Couples is 33. He has mastered the course that made Hogan Hogan. Maybe, one day, it will be recognized as the course that made Couples Couples. Or made Couples Hogan.