Valencia a Winner in Nissan Open

The day ended quietly for Duffy Waldorf.

There was a smattering of applause as Waldorf sank a short putt to finish 21 strokes off the lead at the Nissan Open. He walked off the course at Valencia Country Club and was greeted by family and friends.

This tournament was more than just another stop on the PGA Tour for the veteran professional golfer. It was a rare chance to play on familiar turf, just five minutes from home.

Waldorf paused to look at the leaderboard, which showed Tiger Woods and Billy Mayfair tied at 12-under, ready to enter a playoff that Mayfair later won with a birdie on the first hole.

“Looks like a good tournament,” Waldorf said. “I wish I could have been part of it.”

Too many errant drives, too many missed putts on the greens he knew so well.

Still, Waldorf managed a smile.

“This was a great week for Valencia and for Valencia Country Club,” he said. “They showed what a great job they could do.”

Proof came in the form of blue skies, a sudden-death finish and a surprisingly large turnout of 51,248 for Sunday’s final round. The players seemed duly impressed.

“Honest to God, from tee to green, this course is great,” said Fuzzy Zoeller, who has played 24 years on the tour.

“If you ask most of the players, they’ll tell you so.”

Such testimonials represented a change of heart from just a few months ago, when Valencia and its 33-year-old club faced widespread skepticism.

The Nissan Open is usually played at the hallowed Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, but that club was selected as the site for the 1998 U.S. Senior Open in July and did not want to host two major events so close together.

Valencia was a surprise one-time substitute. Some players wondered about the quality of field the little-known course could attract.

Faced with such doubts, the Newhall Land & Farming Co. dressed up the area with colorful landscaping and new picket fencing. The club manicured its course to tour specifications.

And Waldorf went on a personal crusade, extolling the virtues of his hometown.

“You’re going from a classic course, one of the all-time great courses in the world, to an unknown,” he said. “I told the guys . . . the greens [at Valencia] are probably going to be the best that we play all year on the tour.”

The likes of Woods and Fred Couples, Payne Stewart and Justin Leonard eventually committed to play.

The weather cooperated too, turning sunny and clear after downpours earlier in the week.

Even the fans showed up--113,974 for the week--many of them driving an extra 30 miles to this northern suburb of Los Angeles.

While the total attendance fell short of last year’s record of 129,236, it was comparable to previous years at Riviera.

Along the 17th fairway, Mike Schulman, a volunteer, kept the crowds in order. During breaks in play, he pulled back the rope to let fans cross the fairway.

“Let’s go,” Schulman barked in a Bronx accent. “Move it, gentlemen.”

The retired seltzer salesman, who lives in Van Nuys, was working his first professional tournament.

“This is bee-utiful,” he said. “Everybody’s been real nice.”

He joked with fans. He chatted with players. Couples asked Schulman how he was doing and Zoeller told him not to work too hard.

“We all kibitz,” Schulman said. “We’re having a ball.”

Standing in the gallery nearby were Joe Mendoza and his 9-year-old son, Joseph. They had come from Bakersfield.

“When I heard it was here in Valencia, that’s only an hour drive,” Mendoza said. “It’s too close to miss.”

Instead of fighting the masses that followed the leaders, Mendoza and his son stood in one place, at a spot along the fairway where most of the tee shots landed. They used binoculars to watch players putt on the distant 17th green.

“Tiger will be coming this way soon,” Mendoza said. “This was the least-crowded spot we could find.”

The crowds were a more welcome sight at a Mexican fast-food stand about a mile away.

“We broke our record by $300 on Saturday,” said Victor Macias, the manager. “They should do this more often.”

Chances are, the PGA won’t come back any time soon. The Nissan Open returns to Riviera next winter, and Valencia showed some crucial limitations this week.

“They didn’t build it to be a tournament course,” PGA official Glen Tait said. “There’s not enough room around the 18th green. The grandstands and the skyboxes are too close.”

But players spoke well of the club. Some were glad to escape the traffic that chokes Sunset Boulevard around Riviera at tournament time. Others enjoyed having hotels and restaurants so close to the club.

And they grew to respect the layout.

“The pins were so hard out there,” Woods said. “Just brutal. If the greens had been fast, some of those pins would have been illegal.”

John Daly went so far as to say: “Everything here is a step above Riviera. This just seems, for myself, to be a better golf course.”

Such talk allowed Waldorf to feel some satisfaction after four days of less-than-stellar golf.

“I played poorly and my score reflects that,” he said. “But everyone I’ve talked to really liked playing here. That’s just great.”

TOURNAMENT COVERAGE: Billy Mayfair defeats Tiger Woods in sudden-death playoff. Sports, C1