Elkington, Calcavecchia Rolling in Green : Golf: Pair cart away $300,000 after winning the Shark Shootout over Beck and Janzen with a 54-hole total of 184, 32 under par.

Now we know. The 14th club in Steve Elkington’s bag is a cash register. All right, it might have been a special event that Elkington and Mark Calcavecchia won at Sherwood on Sunday, but that was no funny money they carted off.

Elkington, the 1995 PGA champion, and Calcavecchia, the 1989 British Open champion, won a title together Sunday, namely the Franklin Templeton Shark Shootout.

Now this title may not have the same kind of prestige as a major, but it does have a lot to offer. That would be $1.1 million in prize money, or $300,000 to be shared by the grateful winning team.

To get in the proper spirit during Sunday’s scramble format, Elkington and Calcavecchia developed a phrase to describe good iron shots.

“Money in the bank,” Calcavecchia said.

There is plenty of that, to be sure. No team won less than $30,000 for the three-day event, which ended just in time for the 20 players to catch airplanes and head for their next money-making golf opportunity.

For Elkington, it’s the Australian Open in Sydney. For Calcavecchia, it’s the Argentine Open in Buenos Aires.

There are Skins Games, Diners Clubs, Johnnie Walkers, Lexus Challenges and Million Dollar Challenges. So many special events, so little time.

Elkington and Calcavecchia shot 13-under par 59 in the scramble for a 54-hole total of 32-under 184, which beat the team of Chip Beck-Lee Janzen by one shot.

Janzen and Beck split $170,000, which soothed their feelings about being a runner-up. Janzen has enough to take his mind off it anyway.

He played the Sarazen World Open before the Shark Shootout and has a special event in Japan, the Diners Club at La Quinta and the Johnnie Walker in Jamaica remaining in the “off-season” schedule.

“It’s tough not to play in these events when you have the opportunity,” Janzen said. “When you have the opportunity to play for so much money, it’s tough to pass up.”

Beck’s lineup of special events is limited to the Shark Shootout.

Beck joked: “I tried to find a good place to play, but nobody would have me.”

Meanwhile, Elkington could play a lot more places, but he’s going to put his clubs away after the Australian Open and take time off until he defends his title in the season-opening tournament at La Costa.

You’ve got to know your limitations, as in how many tournaments you can play before problems set in.

“Play too many and it’s brain-dead time,” Elkington said. “But special events at the end of the year are nice.”

Add his Shark Shootout earnings to the $225,000 he won at the two-day PGA Grand Slam of Golf and Elkington has made $375,000 playing five days of golf in special events.

If the money was good at the Shark Shootout and the charities worthy, the scoring Sunday was terrific. Janzen-Beck shot 15-under 57 and picked up only two strokes on Elkington-Calcavecchia, the fifth wire-to-wire winners in seven years.

Fred Couples and Brad Faxon tied for third at 29-under 187 with Tom Lehman-David Duval. Both teams divided $102,000.

Adding it up, Calcavecchia said he thought he averaged more than 300 yards hitting his driver, a new one with a titanium head that he picked up recently in Japan.

“The next thing you know, I’m just launching the thing,” he said.

He will try to do the same thing in Argentina, then at the Diners Club. After that, he promises to put the club away and skip any more special events.

“They’re going in the corner of the garage by my skis,” he said.

That’s probably a good place. At this stage of the golf season, it’s all downhill from here.