1995 / 77th PGA RIVIERA : Who Says Riviera Is an 18-Hole Course? : Golf: Condition of greens, a past controversy, could be made worse by spike marks.

Exactly what does a spike mark cause a rolling golf ball to do? To begin with, there is the aerodynamic situation.

“The ball could pop up in the air,” Fuzzy Zoeller said.

Geography is so very important, it’s off the map.

“The ball can bounce off line and go in the wrong direction,” Larry Mize said.

There is also the theater of the unknown.

“It’s mental,” Jeff Sluman said. “You certainly can’t play away from spike marks because you don’t know where they’re going to be.”

When the PGA Championship begins Thursday at Riviera Country Club, the questions the golfers are going to have to answer will include the normal ones, such as “How do you spell barranca ?” and “Where is the transportation desk?” But there’s also a new one: “Are the greens spiking up?”

The putting surfaces at Riviera might be a source of irritation this week, or they might turn out to be just fine. Golf balls might act as if they are rolling over Swiss cheese or they might just go straight ahead and dive into the hole. Take your pick.

Ever since Riviera’s greens were rebuilt in 1993, they have been trying to catch up to where they should be--aerodynamically, geographically and mentally.

The problem is that the greens were sodded late in the year, which didn’t allow the grass to mature in the growing season, then were played on the next February in the 1994 Nissan L.A. Open.

There were a lot of complaints by the players then. There were still a few complaints during the Nissan Open last February, mostly about the greens spiking up.

Riviera’s greens are still a little thinner than course superintendent Bill Baker would like, but he is confident they are going to hold up this week.

But he called spike marks “my main concern.”

To protect Riviera’s greens, the course was closed last week. Short of asking everybody to play in sock feet, there’s not much anyone can do to keep the greens from getting at least some spike marks during practice and four rounds of the PGA Championship.

Zoeller said the greens were spiking up during his practice round Monday and that won’t change.

“They will spike up,” Zoeller predicted.

But he also said that might not be all that bad.

“OK, the ball could hit a spike mark and get thrown off line,” Zoeller said. “But you could also hit a real ugly putt, the ball hits a spike mark and bounces in the hole. So I guess it could even out.”

Baker is trying to remove some of that game of chance.

The bentgrass surface has been mowed to 5/32nd of an inch. The greens are brushed against the grain with push brooms every afternoon and then mowed.

Actually, the greens will be getting the full salon treatment. They are going to be double cut in the morning, double rolled after each round, brushed and then single cut. Shampoo and mousse are not included.

“The greens have been difficult for us,” Baker said. “In essence, they’re one year old. The difficult thing is having 150 pros on them for eight or nine consecutive days.

“The concern with the greens is not going to be speed, but spike marks,” he said.

The rest of Riviera looks more than ready. The kikuyu rough will be cut to 3 1/2 inches by today with the idea that it won’t be any longer than 4 1/2 inches during the tournament.

Seven fairways have been narrowed, most to improve their looks, but the change on the par-four 15th may come into play. It has been made six yards narrower at the dog-leg to toughen it up.

All new sand has been brought into the bunkers, including the whimsical No. 6, where the bunker is in the middle of the green. Spike marks might be a secondary problem there.

Anyway, a spike mark is only a little hole--how can such a tiny thing cause such a big problem?

Mize said there’s already enough to think about when you’re putting, and spike marks just add to the general confusion, especially if you happen to be going badly.

“It’s in your head,” he said. “You start thinking about spike marks and it takes your mind off what you should be thinking about.”

Zoeller said there is a good way to deal with the holes--every player ought to tap down any marks with his putter before leaving the green, sort of like turning off the lights when you leave the room.

“That’s got to be up to the players,” Zoeller said. “Can’t tap ‘em all down, though.”

Sluman said such a notion is fine in theory, but that’s where it ends. If a player is going to tap down a spike mark, it’s sort of tied to whether that player just knocked in a birdie putt or made double bogey.

“Depends on his frame of mind,” Sluman said.

Maybe the best way to handle spike marks is to accept them.

After all, Sluman said, what’s the alternative?

“There’s really not much you can do,” he said. “Spike marks are here to stay.”