GOLF / BOB HOPE CLASSIC : Players Must Wait for Last Day to Take Center Stage in Desert

Tom Kite has no illusions about what it takes to repeat as champion of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

“You just have to go out there and make a lot of birdies,” he said.

Kite said last year, when he set a 90-hole record with a 35-under-par 325, was a lot of fun, but it’s nothing like the fun he’s about to experience this morning when he tees it up with tournament host Bob Hope, former President Gerald Ford and rocker Eddie Van Halen on the Palmer Course at PGA West.

Kite and 31 other pros must contend with celebrities as playing partners for the first four rounds of this five-day event, while the rest of the 128-player field plays with amateur partners in relative obscurity on the tournament’s four courses.

The players will rotate among the courses through the first 72 holes, with the celebrities moving to La Quinta on Thursday, to Bermuda Dunes on Friday and to Indian Wells on Saturday. The final round Sunday will be played on the host course, Indian Wells.

Johnny Miller, who won this event in 1976 and ‘77, is the only repeat champion in the 34-year history of the Hope.

“Playing in the celebrity field does make it a little more difficult,” Kite said. “It’s going to be a little chaotic. People will be out there with cameras, and they will be out there to watch everybody. It’s not going to be your usual conditions.

“I just have to take a little more time and make sure everybody is quiet and concentrate a little harder when it’s my turn to hit.”

Comedian Bill Murray isn’t in the field, which means fans probably won’t be pulled out of the gallery, but Kite said it wouldn’t have made any difference if Murray were here.

“I don’t have all the details of what went on at Pebble Beach,” said Kite, referring to the verbal joust between Murray and PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am two weeks ago. Murray was upset by criticism of his antics and lashed out at Beman, telling him he should resign.

“I personally don’t see anything wrong with having Murray in the field,” Kite said. “It’s just a situation where you have to find the pros who don’t mind it. Scott Simpson just loves playing with him. So does David Edwards.”

Kite knows what it’s like playing with a comedian for a partner. He has been paired with Tommy Smothers, yo-yo and all.

“Tommy has a great time, doing tricks with his yo-yo, lining up my putts with the string and walking all over my line,” Kite said.

But the antics would always stop whenever it was Kite’s turn to hit the ball.

“As long as you’re looking for excuses not to play well, you can find them,” Kite said. “There are plenty there. I would rather find excuses to play well. When I’m on my game, playing well, concentrating well, you could set off a bomb and it wouldn’t bother me.”

Kite was in such a state a year ago when he shot rounds of 67, 67, 64 and 65, then capped it with a record 10-under-par 62 on the Palmer Course.

His 325 shattered the 90-hole record shared by Andrew Magee and D.A. Weibring, both in the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational, by six strokes.

Kite had two victories, including the Los Angeles Open, a second and an eighth in his first five events and was on the way to a record year when a back injury stopped him. It was the first time he had been sidelined because of an injury, and he was unable to play for nearly three months.

“There’s nothing wrong with my back now,” Kite said. “I do my stretching every morning, and it has given me no more problems.”

But that swing, that zone he was in, that confidence--it’s not quite there yet.

“It’s difficult to get that back,” Kite said. “I’m getting close to where I want to be.”

Golf Notes

Rick Fehr is working on a three-peat. He finished second two years ago with a 24-under-par 336 and second last year with a 29-under-par 331. The latter score would have been good enough to win any of the previous 33 Hope tournaments, except the one in 1991, when Corey Pavin and Mark O’Meara each shot that total. Pavin won in a playoff. . . . When Johnny Miller won his consecutive Hopes, he was 21 under par in 1975 and 16 under par in ’76.

A local newspaper ran the pairings with celebrities listed in bold face. One entrant in light type was a Gerald R. Ford. . . . They have already forgotten about part-time pro Mac O’Grady in the desert, despite his living here. He was listed as Mack O’Grady. . . . The winner of this $1.1-million tournament will receive $198,000, the same as last year. Second place is worth $118,800, which is $10,000 more than Donnie Hammond earned for his victory in 1986.

Arnold Palmer won the Hope for an unprecedented fifth time in 1973. It was his last victory on the PGA Tour. Palmer, who is playing for the 35th time in this event, is the only one to play in the tournament every year.