The Course Should Help UCLA Women

As far as advantages go, there are the home-court, home-field and home-ice varieties. But is there also a home-course advantage?

They certainly hope so at UCLA, where the women’s golf team goes after its second NCAA championship in five years, May 22-25 at La Quinta.

The Dunes Course isn’t foreign territory for the UCLA team, coached by Jackie Steinmann. The Bruins won the season-opening Rolex Fall Preview on the same course by 11 shots.

Kellie Kuehne of Texas, the 1995 U.S. Amateur champion, won the individual competition and Jenny Park of UCLA was second.

Kuehne, who missed half the season after breaking a bone in the ball of her right foot, will lead No. 8 Texas.

“That’s one course we know our way around,” Steinmann said.

The Bruins will enter the NCAA tournament as the favorites, basically because they are the No. 1 team in the Rolex Team Rankings, administered by the College Golf Foundation.

UCLA’s lead over No. 2 San Jose State is six points. In the Golf World Poll, San Jose State is No. 1 and UCLA No. 2.

Whatever the numbers, theirs is a long rivalry. The Bruins won the 1991 NCAA women’s title in a playoff against San Jose State.

“It felt like it was the Ryder Cup,” Steinmann said.

There are three other Pacific 10 Conference teams in the top 10--No. 3 Arizona State, No. 5 Arizona and No. 9 Stanford.

Park, a senior from Danville, is the top player on the UCLA team that lost the conference title to Arizona by one shot.

Steinmann said that her team of Park, Jeong Min Park, Eunice Choi, Kathy Choi and Amandine Vincent is prepared.

“I know there’s a lot of pressure on us, but that’s something we’ve placed on ourselves,” she said. “We’re just going to play the best we can. If we do, then we’ll win the national championship.

Steinmann said this UCLA team is better than the 1991 champion that she coached.

“I can’t say enough about this team,” she said. “I think we’re going to do it.”

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Jack vs. Lee: Jack Nicklaus or Lee Trevino?

You’ve got to take Nicklaus, right, with 18 major championships to six for Trevino? But Nicklaus never won a major in which Trevino finished second.

“I’m not in the same class as Jack Nicklaus,” said Trevino, who plays Nicklaus in a Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf match, taped at Cabo del Sol in Mexico and shown today at 12:30 p.m. on Channel 7.

How Trevino became Nicklaus’ nemesis:

--1968 U.S. Open: Trevino wins his first major and Nicklaus finishes four shots back.

--1971 U.S. Open: Trevino beats Nicklaus in an 18-hole playoff.

--1972 British Open: Trevino chips in three times and holes a bunker shot in the last round to defeat Nicklaus by a shot.

--1974 PGA: Trevino beats Nicklaus by one shot.

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Now it can be told: Sure, Nick Price tore up the golf world in 1993 and ‘94, when he won the British Open, the PGA, the Players Championship and seven other PGA events. But where has he been lately?

Price was winless on the tour last year. This year he is No. 24 on the money list after seven tournaments.

Maybe the reason why is the head fell off his putter in late 1994, Price revealed recently. He said he has been tinkering with a new one since.

“I curse the day the head of my putter fell off,” Price said. “It’s like losing one of your best friends.”

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Tick, tick, tick: David Duval, one shot off the lead after three rounds of the Shell Houston Open, is feeling much better since he had to pull out of Hilton Head and go directly to the hospital with a mysterious virus.

Doctors figure he was bitten by a tick the week before the Players Championship.

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Yes, no, maybe: Despite Nick Faldo’s success since he decided to play the PGA Tour full time, Colin Montgomerie of Scotland has no plans to follow in Faldo’s spike tracks.

Meanwhile, fresh off his fourth-place finish at the Masters, New Zealand’s Frank Nobilo is giving considerable thought to joining fellow Kiwis Grant Waite and Michael Campbell on the PGA Tour in 1997.

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Seeing is believing: John Inman tore a contact lens before the first round at Greensboro, shot an 80 while wearing glasses and wasn’t at all comfortable.

Said Inman: “It felt like I was standing in a hole all day.”

Golf Notes

Joe Pesci will be the celebrity host for the Los Angeles Police-Celebrity golf tournament May 18 at Rancho Park. Scheduled to play are Jack Nicholson, Elgin Baylor and William Devane. The event benefits the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation. Details: (213) 485-3281. . . . The Little Company of Mary Hospital Foundation golf invitational will be played Monday at Palos Verdes Country Club. . . . Jim Murray, Dave Taylor, John Cappelletti, Pat Haden and Terry Donahue are among the guest celebrities in the 14th Padua Village golf classic May 13 at Red Hill Country Club in Rancho Cucamonga. . . . The second Lexus Challenge will be played Dec. 18-21 at La Quinta’s Citrus Course. The event benefits CHILDHELP USA for the prevention of child abuse and neglect. . . . The final round of the Masters on CBS was watched by an estimated 27.2 million viewers.