Sheehan Gets Ball to Listen

Listen! Do you talk to your golf ball in flight? Give it a good talking to? Advice? Tell it to shape up?

Of course you do. We all do. I do. Except our dialogue runs more to “No! No! Not over there!” Or, we say “Get legs!” Or “Bite, bite!” Or--in extreme cases--”Hit something!” We run a lot to “Anybody see where that went?” Or “Come down!” is a staple.

Our ball, of course, pays very little attention to our chatter. It has a mind of its own.

But Patty Sheehan, the champion women’s golfer, has a little better rapport with her ball. She won the Nabisco Dinah Shore golf tournament at Mission Hills on Sunday because of this.

Here was the situation: Sheehan, a 34-tournament winner and a player who expects her golf balls to mind their manners, came up to the 18th hole seven under par. She thought she needed a birdie to win it all. She didn’t. All she needed was a par.

But she hit a risky tee shot instead of a safe one. Her ball headed toward one of the two bodies of water on the hole. “Don’t go in the water!” Sheehan pleaded in agony. Then, she added, “Puhleese!”

The ball, unlike ours, seemed to listen. It came down at the proper second--about six feet from disaster. If the ball ignores her and lands in the water, she loses the tournament. But she managed to stagger her way to the 18th green where she was 120 feet from the hole. She bit off 110 feet with her first putt, then calmly sank the remaining 10 feet to win the Dinah Shore by one shot.

It’s nice to have a tournament that wasn’t going to be won by a player named Fuzzy, or the Shark, the Elk, the Bear, the Walrus, Lumpy, or Mr. X or Z, for a change. To get a tournament full of players named Cindy, Muffin, Maggie, Trish, Penny, Amy, Meg. Also, Brandie, Melissa, Betsy, Jennifer, Gail, Kathy, and Big Momma.

And the winner was a Patty.

Who needs the Masters when you’ve got the Dinah Shore? Who needs Arnie’s Army, Lee’s Fleas, when you got Laura’s Legions, Jan’s Fans, Laurie’s Annies? There’s even a Robin’s Hoods in here. If the men’s tour had a “Brandie,” it would be a description not a name.

It’s Chorus Line golf, the ladies. You’d pay $80 to see these girls in a Ziegfeld Follies. The Folies Bergere with nine-irons. Choreographed golf. Busby Berkeley stuff.

You get hair ribbons, not Amana caps. Winners cry. Losers smile. They won’t go on TV until they get their makeup on. Eye shadow is as important as the two-iron. You feel the women who miss by a shot or two should be designated “first runner-up, second runner-up,” and so on.

Golf is a game of rhythm, style, grace, not brute strength. It is a meticulous game, best played by persons who are neat and even persnickety, not slobs. The kind of people who wouldn’t leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight.

Men play it in caps that look as if they have been borrowed from a guy on a tractor. Their pants don’t have wrinkles in them, they’re all wrinkles. Someone once wanted to know where Gene Littler got all his pre-faded shirts.

Women’s headgear has jewels and velvet in it. You could wear it to the opera. You get the feeling they could play in evening gowns. Men play in garb more suited to unloading a truck. Let’s face it, whom would you rather see lining up a 20-foot putt--Craig Stadler? Or somebody named Heather? Like to see Craig in shorts, would you?

So, all it needed was a hit song.

What men’s tournament would you have the winner greeting the press in a terry-cloth robe? (She jumped in the water on 18, a Dinah Shore tradition.)

Sheehan didn’t win the tournament in her usual way. Ordinarily, she steadies her way round a final 18 like a night watchman making rounds, consistent, relentless. This day, she made four bogeys. “It was a very unlike Patty Sheehan round,” she admitted later. “Four three-putt greens should be enough not to win a tournament.” Five birdies made the counter-balance.

The other women didn’t talk to their golf balls enough. Annika Sorenstam, for instance, lost the tournament where Sheehan won it--the malevolent, 526-yard 18th. On Saturday, Sorenstam came up to 18 at six under par and coasting in, tied for the lead. She played the hole intelligently, laid up her second shot short of the water that surrounds the hole.

A TV cameraman, intent on his job, came too close, interfered with Annika’s doing hers. She dumped the shot in the water, made seven on the hole.

On Sunday, remembering, she hit her pitch shot too hard and over the green. She then hit a horrible chip that ended up in missable range for the putt that she missed. She had made a gross of 13 on the par-five hole in two days. She and her ball should have had a little chat either of those days.

When Sheehan came up to the same hall of horrors and faced a 120-footer to two-putt and win the tournament, she knew the drill. “C’mon, let’s pull ourselves together, you can do it,” she whispered to her ball.

The golf ball, like all of us, responds to a little flattery, and a little tender encouragement and it purred right into the hole. She didn’t say, “Don’t go left, you dog!” She pleaded with it. And it did as it was told.

You won’t find that in any of the instruction books, but Sheehan won $135,000 that way Sunday.

* DINAH SHORE: All Patty Sheehan had to do to win at Mission Hills was get down in two putts on the 18th hole. The problem was, she was 120 feet away. C4.

* THE PLAYERS: Fred Couples went right at the TPC Stadium Course with an eagle on the 16th hole and a birdie on the island-green 17th for a 64 and a four-shot victory. C4.

* COMPLETE RESULTS: C8

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THE TOP FINISHERS

Patty Sheehan, $135,000: 71-72-67-71--281

Kelly Robbins, $64,158: 71-72-71-68--282

Meg Mallon, $64,158: 71-70-71-70--282

Annika Sorenstam, $64,158: 67-72-73-70--282

Amy Fruhwirth, $32,305: 71-73-68-71--283

Karrie Webb, $32,305: 72-70-70-71--283

Brandie Burton, $32,305: 75-67-68-73--283

Hollis Stacy, $23,550: 69-71-74-70--284