Lietzke Got on Track 21 Years Ago

Sure, he probably could have won more money and more tournaments in his 22-year career if he hadn’t cut his schedule to spend time with his family.

But Bruce Lietzke won’t ever forget his greatest moment in golf. It was right after he won his first event, the 1977 Joe Garagiola-Tucson Open, by beating Gene Littler with an 82-foot putt on the fourth playoff hole.

Afterward, Lietzke packed up his car and headed for Pebble Beach, and celebrated by downing a hamburger while listening to a tape by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“This is bad, this is going to date me,” Lietzke said. “It was an eight-track tape.”

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It’s not your typical putting style: Chris DiMarco rests the shaft of his putter on the fleshy area between his right thumb and forefinger.

He doesn’t grip it or rip it, he just rolls the ball into the hole. That’s the plan, anyway, and it worked well last year when DiMarco finished third on the money list on the Nike Tour to earn a trip back to the PGA Tour, where he played in 1994 and 1995.

The 29-year-old from Florida never doubted he’d be back on the big tour.

“Over a year, I knew I could play well if I devoted myself entirely to it,’ he said. “On the Nike Tour, the whole thinking is about playing the PGA Tour the next year. Here, I’m at the bottom of the barrel again with guys way up there.”

DiMarco finished 72 holes at the Bob Hope at nine-under 279 and made the cut to put himself in position for his first PGA Tour paycheck in two years.

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Worst seat in the house? At Bermuda Dunes, it’s the grandstands around the 18th green. That’s where a lot of the players sent the ball on purpose because they get a free drop and then have an easy chip shot.

“Somebody’s going to get hit,” Stewart Cink said.

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It took some doing, but not everybody could make the cut. John Daly missed, despite a 67 at Bermuda Dunes. So did such players as John Cook, Tom Kite, Jim Furyk, Mark Brooks, Curtis Strange, Duffy Waldorf, Jim Gallagher Jr. and Scott Hoch. Cook, Kite, Brooks and Hoch are all former Hope champions.

Hoch’s stretch of 25 consecutive cuts made ended. It was second-longest to Vijay Singh’s mark of 48 straight.