Nissan Open at Riviera : Thrills Aplenty for First-Timer Mike Riedel

When Mike Riedel teed it up in the first round of the Nissan Open on Thursday at Riviera Country Club, it was the first time he had swung a club in a PGA Tour event.

Riedel hadn’t even qualified. He was in on a freebie, a sponsor’s exemption from the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce.

No one, except perhaps Riedel himself, expected him to make the 36-hole cut. Phil Mickelson, the tour’s leading money winner, didn’t make it. Neither did Ben Crenshaw, the Masters champion. The Southern California PGA and the amateur qualifiers didn’t, either.

But there was Riedel on the tee Saturday, one of 75 survivors of two rounds over Riviera’s thick, tangled rough.

“I wasn’t totally surprised [at making the cut] because I play to a plus-four here,” Riedel said. “That means I should shoot even par and that’s close to what I shot.”

Riedel had one advantage no one else had--local knowledge.

Now 33, he has been playing at Riviera since he was 10, winning several junior titles and the club championship in 1985 and 1986. He was recently named to the club’s board of governors.

He shot a 74 in Sunday’s blustery conditions for a 72-hole total of 290. That earned him $2,798.50 and was good enough to beat 19 tour regulars.

“The highlight of the tournament for me was walking up the 18th fairway Saturday and seeing my name on the leader board,” Riedel said. “I hope someone took a picture of it.”

He had started on the 10th hole and was three-under par after eight holes when he saw his name alongside Elkington, Stadler and Simpson, giants of the game and all major tournament winners.

“That, and all the support I got from members of the club, are things I’ll never forget. I wish I could have finished a little stronger, for them as well as for myself.”

Riedel is the first Riviera member to play in more than a decade and the first to survive the cut since the tournament returned to the Santa Monica canyon in 1973.

“One of the other things I’ll remember is the way some of the guys, the really big names, treated me. I was in the dining room when Peter Jacobson walked by my table and congratulated me on playing well. That really meant a lot to me.”

Riedel played at Palisades High and UCLA, where he was a classmate of touring pro Duffy Waldorf. He was a Bruin sophomore when U.S. Open champion Corey Pavin was a senior.

“I didn’t play much at UCLA, the coach [Eddie Merrins] didn’t think I was as good as I thought I was,” he said. “I had the second-best [stroke] differential on the team behind Duffy, but the coach usually played one of the other guys.”

Riedel turned professional in 1988 but never gained a tournament player’s card. Instead, he played in Golden State Tour and Canadian mini-tour events.

“I tried the tour school a bunch of times but never got past the second phase,” he said.

“I doubt if anyone, even the guys on the tour, have hit as many golf balls as I have in the last 10 years,” the slightly built Pacific Palisades resident said. “I sometimes hit balls on the range eight hours a day, seven days a week. I only live about five minutes from the course, so the range is nice and close.”

Will this taste of tournament golf revive a desire to try once again to become a tour player?

“I don’t know,” he said. “It does raise some questions, though, doesn’t it? At 33, am I too old to start in from the bottom?”

Maybe not. Craig Stadler, the winner, is 42.