They Have Tough Act to Follow : Golf: After big rookie seasons, Duval and Austin team up to win opening Diners Club match at PGA West.

It’s usually not too hard to spot PGA Tour rookies.

They’re the ones who think a courtesy car means it’s polite. They still have blank spaces for advertising on their shirts. They think driving statistics mean gas mileage between tournaments.

David Duval and Woody Austin are technically tour rookies, at least until January, but they sure haven’t acted much like it.

Duval is a Nike Tour graduate who had eight top-10 finishes, wound up 11th on the money list with $881,436 and is looking at a future so bright, he might really need those wraparound shades he likes to wear.

Austin won the Buick Open, had six other top-10 finishes and banked $736,681 after working his way through qualifying school.

Thursday, Duval and Austin reached the second round of the $2.1-million Diners Club Matches at the Nicklaus Course at PGA West. Duval-Austin defeated Justin Leonard and Jeff Sluman, 2 and 1, in four-ball match play.

If Duval and Austin have tough acts to follow, at least it’s simple to find the problem. They have no one to blame but themselves.

“The fact that Woody and I both played so well and made a lot of money, it’s hard to top,” said Duval, 24. “But If I go out next year and play good and make $650,000, is that a bad year?

“No, it’s not.”

Anyway, there will be no sophomore jinx worries in the bowling-crazy, television-watching Austin household in Tampa, Fla.

Austin, 31, has been playing the PGA Tour on and off since his first crack at qualifying school in 1987. He used to be a teller at a bank in Tampa. Now he could own one.

“I don’t even want to be making any comparisons next year with what I did this year,” Austin said. “I had an incredible year, and as long as I continue to push myself, I’ll be fine.”

Austin is a self-proclaimed grinder whose intensity could fill a golf cart when he’s on the course. He showed that when he was 16 under par and won the Buick Open, helped along by an opening 63.

“I’m very hyper when it comes to competitive stuff,” Austin said.

He is also a self-professed amateur basketball player, bowler and anything else his wife permits him to play. When Austin rests, he is a television hound.

“I can sit and watch TV all day,” he said. “I can watch Montel as well as anybody.”

Duval was a four-time first-team All-American at Georgia Tech and got his PGA Tour card by finishing eighth on the 1994 Nike Tour money list.

With his surfer hairdo and his precision shotmaking, Duval got into the swing of things in a hurry. He finished second to Peter Jacobsen at Pebble Beach and two weeks later, was runner-up to Kenny Perry at the Bob Hope.

“It didn’t come easy,” Duval said. “It came hard.

“Now I just have to work harder. Like, ‘Well, geez, I had a great rookie year, now I can relax.’ I would never get in that position.”

So far, Duval and Austin are a winning combination, which Austin gets credit for putting together. The team came together in the usual way, probably.

“I begged him,” Austin said.

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Tom Kite holed out a seven-iron from 164 yards on the first extra hole to give the Kite-Billy Andrade team a 1-up victory over Fred Funk and Blaine McCallister.

Kite’s eagle two came on No. 10, the same hole Kite bogeyed three times in the 1992 PGA Grand Slam event.

“Well, I don’t worry about revenge or anything like that,” Kite said. “Good players don’t think negative thoughts.”

Paul Azinger and Phil Mickelson birdied the last four holes and came from behind to defeat Lee Janzen-Payne Stewart, 2-up.

Janzen-Stewart shot 64 and Azinger-Mickelson shot 62.

Some good players could have been thinking negative thoughts at No. 15, where Janzen-Stewart were 2-up. We weren’t looking too good,” Azinger said.

But Mickelson holed a bunker shot from 50 feet and Azinger was sure he had the right partner.

“Phil enjoys carrying people around the golf course,” Azinger said.