Snead, 84, Makes Like a Wise Guy

Sam Snead turns 85 in two months and splits his time between Hot Springs, Va., and Fort Pierce, Fla., which is where he spends the winter. After teeing it up with E. Harvie Ward this weekend at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, Snead might not play anymore competitively after next month’s Tradition.

Snead said it is easy to characterize the way he is playing.

“My golf game at the moment is coming and going,” he said.

That’s probably to be expected since Snead didn’t play much golf in Florida over the winter, but he had some good reasons.

“I didn’t have any pigeons,” Snead said. “All the pigeons I had are either dead or they stayed away from my building.”

As it turns out, Snead tends to have a lot of opinions, mostly because he has either seen it happen or has done it himself during a golf career in its eighth decade.

--On Tiger Woods: “He’s in super-high gear, he’s on fire right now, but a few more years will tell the story. Most players have a great, high moment in their life. I don’t know if he’s had his yet.”

--On the Stadium Course at PGA West, where the Legends used to play: “They said, ‘We want the hardest golf course in the world.’ I said, ‘You ought to send this one to hell.’ ”

--On his official tournament victory total, which the PGA Tour reduced from 86 to 81 because five were not considered official events: “The way things are going, [Jack] Nicklaus is going to pass me and he doesn’t have to win another tournament.”

--On the quality of play on the Senior PGA Tour: “You make one little boo-boo and they go by you in bunches. You go from caviar to rabbit.”

--On giving advice to nephew J.C. Snead: “I told him, ‘I’ll put cotton in this ear and you put cotton in the other ear. That way, it won’t go straight through.’ ”

--On the seven major championships he won between 1942 and 1954: “They didn’t total $25,000 altogether. Right now, I’d rather watch senior tour events than PGA Tour events on television. I’ve got to admit, though, I don’t know too many of those flat-bellies over there.”

OLD LEGEND, NEW ONE

Paul Runyan won the PGA Championship in 1934 and again in 1938, so he knows a thing or two about what it takes to win major golf titles. Now 88, Runyan said Woods has it.

“He has a chance to become the greatest player of all time,” Runyan said. “Right now, he’s as good as anybody in the world.”

Runyan said he only recently climbed on the Woods bandwagon, waiting until the 21-year-old filled out his game with the restraint needed to become a great champion by keeping his driver in his bag unless it was called for.

“He’s got to get smarter, golfingly speaking,” Runyan said. “He just needs more experience. He needs to know how to save shots, avoid double bogeys, accept pars when that’s all he can get. I don’t think he has any peers as far as swinging the club is concerned.”

Last year at Augusta, Greg Norman said he thought Woods was capable of winning the Masters right away. Runyan agreed, but with reservations.

“If I were going to make a bet on anybody at the Masters, I would probably take either Davis Love III or Norman over Tiger Woods,” Runyan said. “But if Tiger Woods can master or come close to the mental game, he could win hands down.”

FALL COMES EARLY

After President Clinton fell down some steps and tore up his knee while a house guest of Norman, reporters for several of the tabloid television shows decided to show up at the Honda Classic for reaction.

To his surprise, New York Times golf writer Larry Dorman found himself facing the cameras of “American Journal.” Dorman said he might have imagined being interviewed for winning the Pulitzer Prize or possibly writing a bestseller.

“But never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever be asked what I thought about a president falling down some stairs at a golfer’s house,” Dorman said.

THE MILK RUN

Honda Classic champion Stuart Appleby, 25, grew up on his parents’ 250-acre dairy ranch in Cohuna, Australia, where there was plenty of room for a kid to practice his golf.

“I could hit shots from paddock to paddock and over the house,” said Appleby, whose first PGA Tour victory was worth $270,000.

Fellow Aussie Norman sent him a congratulatory note. Good thing he didn’t ask Appleby over and give him the room upstairs.

ALL THINGS NOT EQUAL

The winner at next week’s PGA Tour Players Championship, which is not a major, gets $630,000. The winner at next week’s LPGA Nabisco Dinah Shore, which is a major, gets $135,000.

SEVE’S HEAVY HAND

Seve Ballesteros said he has asked Mark James, the chairman of the PGA European Tour’s tournament committee, to poll the players if they would approve Ballesteros having as many as four selections for the European Ryder Cup team that will play the United States in September in Spain.

“I think I am going to get something out of it,” said Ballesteros, the European team captain. “I don’t think it’s unfair to change the system but, obviously, it’s going to be more difficult to finish in the top eight than the top 10 in the points table.

“It would not be fair to change the rules in July or August after many big tournaments have been played, but we’re only halfway through [the selection process]. It’s very clear, very simple: I just want the best players on the team.”

His problem is that players such as Nick Faldo and Jesper Parnevik are concentrating on the PGA Tour and not busy making money in European tour events to build up Ryder Cup points. Other potential team members, such as Jose Maria Olazabal and Bernhard Langer, need a strong summer to make the team on points.

Ballesteros said the only rule is that both the U.S. and European teams have 12 players.

“I don’t really care about the American side’s rules,” Ballesteros said. “I only care about my responsibility to have the best team to play for Europe.”

To select the U.S. team, the PGA of America calls for 10 players to earn berths in a two-year system of acquiring points for tournament play and for two players to be chosen by the team captain, in this case, Tom Kite.

LPGA: A FOUR-PEAT?

--Some nice things are happening for Laura Davies, the LPGA’s player of year in 1996, when she won four times--two of them majors. If Davies wins the Standard Register Ping this weekend at Phoenix, she will be the first LPGA player to win the same tournament four consecutive years.

Davies has two top-10 finishes in four events so far and is No. 11 on the money list with $87,883.

--When the LPGA announced a partnership with the USGA and the Girls Scouts of America for its Girls Golf Club, Nancy Lopez walked into the LPGA/Target Fan Village in Phoenix with her sash, badges and hat from her days as a Girl Scout in Roswell, N.M.

--Annika Sorenstam’s start of two victories, two seconds and a third is the best since Kathy Whitworth won her first four starts in 1969. What’s more, Sorenstam hasn’t missed a cut since she was a rookie in 1994.

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

It has been a 40-something sort of year so far on the PGA Tour. Thirteen players have either turned 40 or soon will and four new 40-year-olds already have won--John Cook at the Bob Hope, Mark O’Meara at Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines, Jeff Sluman at Tucson and Nick Faldo at the Nissan Open. . . . Jane Blalock will give instruction at a Gillette LPGA clinic Tuesday at Calabasas Country Club. The event is designed to help women learn to use golf as a business tool and to raise money for breast-cancer research. Details: (800) 262-PUTT. . . . James Woods, Alan Thicke and James Worthy are among the celebrities in the American Diabetes Assn. tournament March 31 at MountainGate Country Club. Details: (213) 966-2890. . . . The Dave Taylor/Cystic Fibrosis golf classic will be held June 9 at North Ranch Country Club. More than $500,000 has been raised so far. Details: (310) 479-8585. . . . A tournament benefiting the Orange County Alzheimer’s Assn. will be held April 14 at Newport Beach Country Club. Details: (714) 283-1984, Ext. 30.

The Angels Care Celebrity golf classic will be held June 2 at Tustin Ranch Golf Club. Angel players, coaches and staff will play. Angels Care is a nonprofit endeavor to provide funding to Orange Country charities. Details: (714) 940-2064. . . . Nabisco estimates that more than 1 million Oreo cookies have been eaten at the Nabisco Dinah Shore since the company took over as title sponsor of the event in 1982. Just thought you ought to know. . . . Willie Wood is making his second appearance at the Masters--and his first in 15 years. Wood was a 21-year-old amateur in 1982 when he got into the field as a semifinalist in the 1981 U.S. Amateur. Wood got his second invitation to the tournament for winning last year’s Deposit Guarantee. The longest time between Masters visits is 23 years by Ernie Ball (1934-57) and Bruce Fleisher (1969-92).