Early Push for Valencia Appears to Have Worked Out Well

The selling job started a year ago, with a few not-ready-for-prime-time pros being dispatched from Riviera to the Valencia Country Club on a scouting mission on the day before the Nissan Open.

The PGA Tour was going to skip Riviera in 1998, because the course will play host to the Senior U.S. Open this summer, so Skip Kendall went to Valencia. So did Bob Estes. Actually 28 golfers in all headed up I-405 to play in what was billed as a “secondary pro-am” with well-heeled businessmen/partners while the “name” guys--you know, Craig Stadler, Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Tom Watson--played Riviera with their well-heeled businessmen/partners in the Nissan Open pro-am.

For all the world, the extra pro-am looked like a money grab for charity. But looks were a bit deceiving.

“The players all came back from Valencia raving about the greens and how the course sets up for professional tournament play,” said Tom Pulchinski, the Nissan Open’s director. “They helped spread the word.”

The word was, “hey, don’t write off the L.A. Open [the old-timers and new-timers with a sense of tradition still call it that] just because it’s not being played at Riviera. Sure, Hogan’s Alley doesn’t go through Valencia, but a Brink’s truck will stop there.”

The truck will have an extra $700,000 in it this year, a total of $2.1 million for the tournament.

The suspicion that a one-year departure from revered Riviera to virginal Valencia would mean the PGA Tour’s better players would take an extra week to rest before starting the Florida tour hasn’t born out. Not completely, anyway.

Maybe it’s the greens. Maybe it’s the newness, or the recruiting of Duffy Waldorf--who calls the course home--and the not-so-famous 28. More likely, it’s the money.

If you pay enough for them, they will come, and $378,000 to win seems about enough.

A year ago, seven of the top-10 money-winners on the 1996 list played at Riviera. This year, four of the top 10 from 1997 will be at Valencia. In 1996, 16 of the top 25 played the Nissan. This year, it’s 10 of the top 25.

Fewer, perhaps, but Tiger Woods will be there, playing a course that dogged him when he was younger and trying and failing to qualify for the U.S. Open.

Fred Couples is playing this week. Steve Elkington. Tom Lehman. Phil Mickelson.

“We really don’t see that much of a drop-off from the field we would have had at Riviera,” Pulchinski said. “It’s probably just as good a field.”

Nick Faldo will be back to defend a title on a course on which he didn’t win it. Six others who won at Riviera will be trying to win at Valencia, the 11th course to play host to the Nissan Open--by whatever name--since its inception in 1926.

Some will be trying to get into the field today in qualifying tournaments at Los Serranos and Western Hills. Others will get in a practice round at the somewhat shorter, in some ways trickier Valencia layout.

Nissan Open officials’ worries about ticket sales have been alleviated. A week ago, the tournament had sold about 96% of the number of tickets sold a year ago at Riviera. Corporate hospitality tents have been increased by sales to some Santa Clarita businesses.

And water is being pumped out of the course itself, which is in remarkably good condition, considering the rain it has taken in the past few weeks.

After practice today and Tuesday, there is the usual pro-am on Wednesday.

And another secondary pro-am, at Riviera, where not-ready-for-prime-time players will go on a scouting mission, reporting back on whether the greens might be ready for next year’s Nissan Open.

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Nissan Open Schedule

* Today--Qualifying rounds at Los Serranos and Western Hills. Practice rounds at Valencia Country Club, 7 a.m.

* Tuesday--Practice rounds, 7 a.m.; Gillette Tour Challenge, 1 p.m.

* Wednesday--Pro-am, 7 a.m.

* Thursday and Friday--First two rounds, 7 a.m.

* Saturday and Sunday--Final two rounds, 8 a.m.

* TV--USA (Thursday, Friday, 1-3 p.m.), CBS (Saturday, noon-3 p.m.; Sunday, 1-3 p.m.)

* Tickets--Daily, $20; season tickets, $60; discount book (12 daily passes), $180