GOLF / MAL FLORENCE : Team Approach Aids Mochrie

Teamwork is essential in any sport--even golf. Yes, of course, golf is an individual sport, but a resourceful, knowledgeable caddie can be a great asset to a player.

Dottie Mochrie’s caddie is her best friend and teacher. He’s also her husband.

Mochrie, last year’s LPGA player of the year, usually travels the circuit with her husband, Doug.

The arrangement works for them, but it didn’t for Nancy Lopez and her husband, Ray Knight, a former major league baseball player.

Mochrie, 27, said she met Doug when she was 13, but they didn’t start dating until she was attending Furman University. They were married in July of 1986.

“He missed only two tournaments last year, and I happened to win one of them,” Mochrie said, laughing. “It’s not a caddie-player relationship. It’s a teacher-player relationship. He reads greens and gives me the numbers, but he does a lot more than that.”

Doug Mochrie is a former pro. Dottie said that he still carries a Class-A golf card, adding, “One day I’ll do the minor part when I get through with this crazy stuff. Then, he’ll go back to teaching. His communication skills are extremely good.”

Mochrie said that Doug, 35, also has marketing skills and a certification in agronomy.

The player-husband relationship didn’t work out with Lopez and Knight.

“It’s different,” Mochrie said. “Ray was a great athlete in his own right, and he wasn’t Nancy’s instructor. I think Doug and I have a special way of keeping the husband and wife, best friend and buddy, away from the golf course.”

Mochrie won four tournaments last year, starting with the Nabisco Dinah Shore, one of four major events on the women’s tour.

She rallied on the final day to beat Juli Inkster in a playoff. Mochrie will defend her title March 25-28 at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage.

Mochrie said that her victory in the Dinah Shore tournament set the tone for the rest of the year.

“It showed that if you just hang in there and give yourself a chance, you don’t have to dominate from hole 1 to 72,” she said.

Mochrie scrambled to her victories in 1992.

“I either came from behind, or was tied,” she said. “I don’t think I had the outright lead going into the final round of any tournament I won last year.”

Mochrie, who lives in Osprey, Fla., is an intense competitor, perhaps too intense earlier in her career. Her temper would flare on the course.

“I think all self-driven athletes have that where they won’t tolerate anything less than perfection,” she said.

She said that Doug persuaded her that she was hurting her game by trying too hard.

Dottie and Doug travel the golf circuit with their dog, Shank, a chow. His picture is on her golf bag.

“He’s good for my mental part,” Mochrie said. “He doesn’t care if I shoot 80.”

Mochrie started playing golf when she was 7 while growing up in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She said her father, Don Pepper, was a major influence on her career.

Pepper played major league baseball briefly and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1968. Mochrie would like to appear on the cover some day, which she believes would make her and her father the first father-daughter combination to be so publicized in the magazine.

Mochrie said she doesn’t have any specific monetary goals.

“But I have some statistical goals,” she said. “I feel if I can accomplish improvements in areas of putting and bunker play, everything else will take care of itself. I’m hitting it so close now and hitting so many greens.”

In five seasons on the LPGA tour, Mochrie has earned more than $1.67 million and six victories. She reached the million-dollar plateau in only four years and 18 days, a record for the women’s tour.

She is proud of victories in two unofficial events last year, the Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge, and the JCPenney Classic, a competition pairing LPGA and PGA tour players.

In the Wendy’s Challenge event, Mochrie teamed with Lopez and Patty Sheehan to beat a men’s team of Raymond Floyd, Fred Couples and Tom Kite and a senior team of Jack Nicklaus, Larry Laoretti and Chi Chi Rodriguez.

She also teamed with Dan Forsman to win the JCPenney event, an alternate-shot format.

“That was one of my most thrilling wins all year,” Mochrie said. “It was our fifth try. We hadn’t done well previously.”

Mochrie has been on the LPGA tour only since 1988, but she is part of a group of young players that includes Meg Mallon, Liselotte Neumann, Laura Davies and Danielle Ammaccapane, who figure to be dominant in women’s golf for years to come.

As for Mochrie’s game now, she said: “I’m hitting it great. I’ve had more kick-ins for birdies on par fives. As I’ve gotten longer, I’ve left myself in a position where I’m pitching into par fives instead of hitting full shots.”

There has been a so-called jinx for U.S. Open winners in recent years. Curtis Strange hasn’t won a tournament since winning the Open for the second consecutive time in 1989.

Scott Simpson and Hale Irwin have won only once each since winning the Open in 1987 and 1990, respectively. Payne Stewart hasn’t won since winning the Open in 1991.

Tom Kite, though, has been notably unaffected. Since winning the Open last June at Pebble Beach, he has already won the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and the Nissan Los Angeles Open on Sunday at the Riviera Country Club.

Kite, golf’s all-time leading money winner, has earned $427,361 this year to increase his earnings to $8,085,279.

What’s next for Kite, a Masters title in Augusta in April?

“I’m not even allowing myself to think about Augusta yet,” Kite said Sunday. “I have tried not to emphasize (the Masters). Obviously, I want to play well when April gets here, but it’s still February.”

Kite plans to play three tournaments before the Masters--Doral this week, the Honda Classic and the Players Championship, all in Florida.

Kite became the first player to win the Hope tournament and the L.A. Open in the same year since Lanny Wadkins in 1985.

Golf Notes

Jerry Barber, 76, and his son Tom, 50, will compete in the GTE West Classic starting Friday at the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club. They are the first father-son combination to compete in a Senior PGA Tour event. . . . The Mickey Rooney Celebrity-Am tournament to benefit the Los Angeles Mission will be held March 22 at Brookside Golf Course. . . . The John McKay Invitational tournament will be held Sunday and Monday at Palm Valley CC in Palm Desert.