Winner Should Be Under Par

Par just isn’t going to be good enough to win the U.S. Senior Open, which is probably going to irritate some of those who revere Riviera as a test of golf. But, then again, par isn’t usually enough to win the U.S. Senior Open.

“I would think if you shoot 280, you would win the golf tournament,” Jack Nicklaus said Tuesday.

Added Arnold Palmer: “I look for something in the area of 280 would be a pretty good score. I would take it right now and not even go out there. I am sure a lot of other people would too.”

A 280 would be four under par at Riviera.

Graham Marsh, who won last year’s tournament at Olympia Fields in Illinois with a 280, which was even par, echoed the thought:

“I think the way Gil [Morgan] and Hale [Irwin] have been playing, it could be as low as 10 under par.”

Only seven of the 18 senior opens have been won by scores of par or higher, and the record low scores for a winner were the 14-under totals by Gary Player at Brooklawn in Fairfield, Conn., in 1988 and by Simon Hobday at Pinehurst in 1994.

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Don Shevorski of Anaheim shot a 73 in senior open qualifying at Virginia Country Club in Long Beach, double-bogeying the final hole, and said “it was less than spectacular.”

That was June 29, and it was good enough to earn him an alternate spot in the senior open field.

It became good enough to get him into the tournament after John Bland withdrew Tuesday to return to his home in South Africa because of his wife’s illness.

Shevorski, 57, will be playing with former champion Dale Douglass and Calvin Peete when the tournament begins Thursday.

It will be his fourth senior open. He also earned a place in the field as an alternate in 1994 at Cherry Hills after Jim Dent withdrew.

Dent withdrew again Tuesday, which put John Baker of Hermitage, Pa., into the field as the second alternate from qualifying at Pittsburgh. He made it when first alternate John Rech wasn’t available.

And Buddy Allin made it three withdrawals in a day when he pulled out, getting Robert Heaton of Antioch, Calif., in the field.

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Jim Colbert spent a bit of his day on the practice green, but not putting. He was logging time for his Screen Actors Guild card, acting with Robert Wuhl during a taping for an upcoming “Arli$$,” the HBO comedy in which Wuhl plays sports agent Arliss Michaels.