1995 / 77th PGA RIVIERA : Adams Learns How to Draw a Crowd : Golf: Late-starting no-name shoots six-under 29 on front nine, finishes with a 65.

The John Adams-Steve Rintoul-Greg Kraft threesome teed off at 2:28 p.m. Thursday to a smattering of applause. By this time, Riviera’s greens had been thoroughly spiked and chewed. John Daly was long gone and probably fist-deep into his third bag of doughnuts.

But a curious thing happened after nine holes. Fans who had never heard of John Adams--this would include most of the free world--started migrating toward his group.

Adams shot a six-under-par 29 on the front nine, one shot off Andrew Magee’s course record.

Adams, 41 and winless since joining the PGA in 1978, suddenly needed marshals and ropes to keep the fans back.

This was not golf as he knew it.

“This late in the day in a major, usually the last couple of groups are the lower-life tour players, some of the club pros,” Adams explained later. “And they feed us all into the back there, we’re kind of out there battling.

“Usually the biggest rush we see [by fans] is out to the parking lot.”

After Adams birdied 10 and 11 to go to eight under and take the lead, he became more than a curiosity.

“Eight under after 11 holes, that’s just insane,” a Riviera member said as Adams approached the 12th tee.

True enough.

Adams floated back down to reality, with two bogeys on the back nine, but he still finished with a six-under-par 65, two shots behind the day’s unlikely leader, Michael Bradley.

Adams has been around long enough to know what it all meant.

“Leading the PGA after 11 or 12 holes doesn’t mean a thing,” he said.

But, for a brief, shining moment, his name was atop the leader board, ahead of Corey Pavin, Ben Crenshaw of Greg Norman.

“It’s pretty cool,” Adams admitted.

For a few holes at the 77th PGA Championship, Adams was the man.

“You’re making history, Johnny,” a fan shouted after Adams made par on 12. “Go get ‘em.”

Adams smiled nervously.

After he parred 14, a lady sensed he was tensing up. “Stay focused, big guy,” she said.

All these years, no one cared what Adams did, and now suddenly he’s getting counseling.

“I saw a lot of nice people out there, yelling and screaming,” Adams said. “It was fun. It was a lot of fun.”

Adams started to slip on the par-four 15th, landing an errant tee shot on a cart path left of the fairway.

“It was pretty ugly, it was pretty left, and I made my first bogey,” Adams said. “Still, I didn’t panic.”

The crowd was still with him.

“He’s still leading Ian Baker-Finch by 16 shots,” someone remarked.

Adams recovered to make par on 16, but then ran into more trouble, swallowing his second bogey after three-putting on the par-five 17th.

At 18, he got robbed, as his putt for birdie rolled to the lip of the cup and died.

“It didn’t go in, but it sure looked like it wanted to,” Adams said.

Adams was in with his 65 and glad to have it. Days like these don’t roll around often for bottom feeders.

Adams remembers leading a U.S. Open a couple years back before he faded. The closest he ever came to winning any tournament was 1982, when he lost a playoff to Jay Haas at the Hall of Fame Classic.

Last year, Adams was 151st on the money list. The highest he ever finished was 78th, in 1993.

He was born in Altus, Okla., and grew up the son of a golf pro in Midland, Tex. He has earned nearly $1.5 million in 17-plus years, which really isn’t much after expenses.

He is, bottom line, not the type of guy to threaten for a major.

“You get guys like me, what, 60th on money list or something,” he said. “We play good probably five or six times a year. I mean play really well. We’re not like Greg Norman, not in the top 10 every week, or finish second every week like he does.

“When we play good, we play good. It doesn’t really make much difference, if we’re playing here or back at the club with our amateur buddies.”

Adams is a realist. He knows Riviera was not much of an opening-round test, yielding a PGA record-tying 57 sub-par rounds. “I would like to say that Riviera is not finished,” Adams said. “We may have gotten off to nice start today, but if the wind will get up a little bit and the greens will dry out a little bit, Riviera will be back.”

And John Adams probably won’t.