Stadler Powders Doughnut Hole : Golf: He gets an ace on tricky No. 6, where bunker on the green can cause all sorts of difficulty.

The sadistic faithful who arrived early and stayed late at Riviera’s trap-in-the-center sixth green--most of them hoping for the worst--caught a bonus Saturday.

Craig Stadler hit a five-iron from 178 yards that hit the green about six feet in front of the hole and bounced in for a hole in one.

The gallery, swollen from the appearance of John Daly in the same threesome, erupted with a shout that rolled back up Santa Monica canyon all the way to the clubhouse.

“Daly must have hit another one,” most said.

Daly had hit a good one, a nine-iron shot that stopped seven feet from the hole, but even though he made the putt for a birdie, he lost a stroke to Stadler.

Stadler, the 5-foot-10, 220-pounder known as the Walrus, has played in the Los Angeles Open for 22 years, since he won the U.S. Amateur as a student at USC, but this was his first ace at Riviera and his first in a PGA Tour event.

“I’ve had about four of them since I turned pro,” he said. “I had more when I was a kid in San Diego. I had a bunch of them back then.”

The ace helped Stadler finish the third round with a 67 for an 11-under-par 202, two shots back of leader Kenny Perry.

Perry also made a birdie at the sixth hole with an eight-foot putt after hitting a six-iron.

“Getting that birdie was a big turnaround for me,” Perry said. “It got me back to even (par, for the round) and got my momentum going and my confidence back.”

The sixth, with its trap in the middle of the green, is one of the most unusual holes in golf. From the blimp, it looks like a misshaped doughnut. Or, as one cynic said after placing his tee shot on the wrong side, a “toilet seat.”

It is the farthest hole from the clubhouse, deep down in the southwest corner of the grounds, but an hour before the first group arrived at the sixth tee, the left side of the green was rimmed by spectators. Many of them brought chairs or pieces of cardboard to sit on.

“I’ve been sitting here at least one round every year for the last five or six L.A. Opens,” spectator Alice LeDuc said. “I holed out from that bunker once, years ago, and I want to see if anyone else can do it.”

Mostly, though, they came to see if anyone would put his tee shot on the wrong side of the two-tier green, forcing him to make a chip shot from the putting surface--something forbidden to members during regular play.

The pin Saturday was in the rear on the left side of the green.

Steve Elkington was the first to hit on the wrong side, and Steve Pate followed with another one.

Peter Jacobsen, third member of the group, put his tee shot in a greenside bunker, which proved to be the best place of the three.

Pate, a former UCLA teammate of defending champion Corey Pavin, skulled his chip shot across the green into deep rough. From there, he chipped short and took two putts for a double-bogey five. Elkington lofted his shot neatly over the bunker, but missed his putt and took a bogey.

Jacobsen, on the other hand, nearly holed out a bunker shot and was the only one in the group to make par.

Landing on the correct side of the green is no guarantee for success, however.

Kelly Gibson, a 1994 tour qualifier from New Orleans, hit the green but took four putts for a double bogey.

Today, the pin will be in the right front, which could mean double--or triple--trouble for anyone who goes left.