Tougher Pin Placing at Masters, but That’s as Rough as It Gets

If the gentlemen in the Masters green jackets really wanted to make it tougher on Tiger Woods at Augusta National, they could have done a lot more sinister things than what they came up with after his record-smashing 12-shot victory last year.

Here’s the list of alterations:

1. Rebuilt greens at Nos. 6, 8 and 14, ostensibly for “agronomic” reasons because bermuda had encroached on the bent grass surface. The result? Tougher pin placements, especially at the par-three sixth, where a back-left pin is a virtual certainty, and a back-right one at No. 8.

2. Moved the tee at No. 11 about 20 feet to the right because an old pine tree had died and fallen along the right-hand side. The result? Fewer textbook power hooks in good shape down the fairway.

3. New trees on the right side of Nos. 13 and 18, in the second-shot areas. The result? It’s going to be much tougher to get out of the pine needles and onto the green in two.

But they didn’t grow rough . . . and that’s fine with Woods.

“Actually, that’s kind of the hallmark of Augusta,” he said. “It’s the only golf course that doesn’t have any rough. And you can play it and still shoot over par with no rough. The greens are their biggest defense mechanism.

“I do think to combat scores that they can create new pin locations, which they’ve done, because now we’ve got some new pins, we don’t know how they break, we don’t know their tendencies on certain days under certain conditions.

“I think they’ve done the right thing. They’ve changed it a little bit, but they made it probably a little more difficult because we don’t know how to play these three holes.”

Woods probably can figure out a way. Last year, he played 72 holes without a three-putt. Can he do that again?

“I sure hope so,” Woods said.

THE ROUGH TRUTH

Sam Snead said he doesn’t think there should be any Tiger-proofing of Augusta National. Snead is on record opposing tampering with the course. He recalled that Ben Hogan once suggested to Cliff Roberts that he bring the rough in about 25 yards.

Snead didn’t think Hogan’s idea was so great. “I said to Cliff, ‘How much do you want him to win by?’ ”

WOULD SANDY LYLE WIN?

Oh, and another thing. . . . Snead did have a way to toughen up Augusta National even more, besides growing rough or adding a thin layer of concrete to the putting surfaces.

“Why don’t they just make it sand on both sides of the fairways,” Snead said. “That would make it fair for everybody.”

COUNTDOWN

Last year, Annika Sorenstam had four victories (if you count the Skins Game) by the first week of June. This year, she has played only three times (four counting this week’s event in Phoenix), and she is winless.

Is this a slump or what?

“The problem is comparing last year to this year,” Sorenstam said. “I am not going to do that. I’m really happy with the way I’ve started because of my new attitude. I leave the course and I’m in a good mood.”

Chances are her mood would improve even more if she could win next week’s $1-million Nabisco Dinah Shore at Mission Hills, the LPGA’s first major of the year. Sorenstam hasn’t won yet, but she’s getting closer--a tie for sixth at Glendale, a tie for fourth at Hawaii and a tie for second at Australia.

After finishing behind Karrie Webb in Australia, Sorenstam worked for five days with Henri Ries, her coach from Sweden, at the Callaway complex in Carlsbad. Ries had her working on her wedges as well as her putting, discovering that Sorenstam was taking her putter back in too long of an arc.

“I’m trying to be as ready as I can,” she said. “The Dinah Shore is on my priority list. I just hope my game will be there when I need it to be.”

At 27, Sorenstam already is a 12-time winner, a two-time U.S. Open champion, a two-time player of the year and a two-time top money winner. All that’s left are some more major titles, and her first chance this year comes next week at Mission Hills.

“It’s majors I like to win,” she said. “They’re what people remember; they’re what make history. I know I can win a major. I’ve done it twice. Can I do it on this course and can I do it this year?”

DAVIES GETS RUNG UP

Is this any way to make history? Laura Davies, who is going for a record fifth consecutive victory in the Standard Register Ping at Phoenix, isn’t exactly at the top of her game.

Davies has missed the cut in four of her last five tournaments, including last week at Tucson where she decided to seek refuge on the tennis court and reportedly smashed her racket into bits.

Sorenstam said she feels sorry for Davies, the 1996 player of the year.

“She never practices, so when she misses a few putts she starts thinking a little bit, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ When you don’t practice much, what do you go back to? I think it’s sad. You have to get away from those bad thoughts. She’s got so much game. It’s just a matter of making the putts.”

Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen are the only others to have won the same event four consecutive years.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Sorenstam on putting: “You don’t need to miss a lot of putts to lose your confidence, but you need to make a lot of putts to get it back.”

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPION

So the newest Wheaties permanent spokesman is Woods, who joins his superstar-golfing-buddy Michael Jordan as a cereal box cover star. Woods, who had turned down a series of requests by Wheaties to join the team, changed his mind when Wheaties said it would devote the back of the box to the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Six million cereal boxes with Woods’ picture on the box are heading for a store near you in the next 90 days.

As for truth in advertising, Hughes Norton, Woods’ agent at IMG, said his client is a breakfast food kind of guy.

“He’s eaten cereal all his life,” Norton said.

Thus, Wheaties is in line to replace Woods’ perennial breakfast of choice (Sausage McMuffin, no egg, and hash browns) in the food chain.

“We’re trying to get him on board the health train,” Norton said.

CASEY MARTIN UPDATE

He’s in Monterrey, Mexico, playing a Nike Tour event, but last week he played in a fund-raiser for the Stanford and California golf teams in the Bay Area. At Ruby Hill Golf Club in Pleasanton--which played a wet 7,017 yards--Martin shot a 65.

Martin will throw out the first pitch at the San Francisco Giants’ April 14 game against the San Diego Padres.

Meanwhile, Martin has said he will try to qualify for the U.S. Open, probably in the sectional qualifying event June 8 at Clovernook Country Club in Cincinnati. Sources in the USGA said it is unlikely that Martin will be asked to park his golf cart during qualifying.

DON’T KNOW JACK

Let’s see if we’ve got this straight: The USGA meets in January and decides not to give Jack Nicklaus an exemption into the U.S. Open. Two months later, the USGA reverses its field and decides to give him an exemption--for three years.

It was an unprecedented move and an unexpected one. In January at Pebble Beach, Nicklaus figured how he played early in the season would be sort of an audition for the USGA to see if he was worthy of a U.S. Open exemption. What changed? Now he’s got a ticket to the Olympic Club in San Francisco this year, to Pinehurst in North Carolina in 1999 and to Pebble Beach in 2000.

Of course, Nicklaus, 58, deserves to play in the U.S. Open, which he has won four times. He has received five exemptions from the USGA since 1991 and has played in 152 consecutive majors, including 41 consecutive U.S. Open championships. But why give him an exemption for three years when as recently as eight weeks ago he wasn’t even worthy of one . . . and exemptions have always been a one-year deal?

Could be the USGA didn’t want to risk upsetting Nicklaus--and didn’t want to go through this thing again every year.

SORRY, SEVE

Seve Ballesteros asked for it, and he didn’t get it. That would be an invitation to play in next week’s Players Championship. Ballesteros said he even asked Tim Finchem about playing at Sawgrass and was told to wait and see what happened.

What happened was nothing, so the two-time Masters champion will warm up for the Augusta at the Freeport McDermott Classic in New Orleans the week before. Ballesteros, who missed the cut at Augusta in 1997 for only the third time in 21 years, last finished in the top 10 at the Masters in 1990.

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

The ninth Paul Runyan Orthopaedic Hospital golf classic will be held April 27 at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale. Details: (213) 742-1500. . . . The Little Company of Mary Hospital Foundation pro-am will be played May 4 at Virginia Country Club in Long Beach. Details: (310) 543-6901. . . . The Chi Chi Rodriguez Golf Classic, which benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, will be played April 7 at Los Coyotes Country Club in Buena Park. Details: (714) 938-1393.

The Loch Lomond World Invitational in Scotland that serves as a warmup to the British Open, is now the Standard Life Loch Lomond. The European mutual life insurance company signed a three-year deal as title sponsor. If anyone wins both the Loch Lomond and the British Open at Royal Birkdale, the company said it will award a $1-million bonus.

Four amateurs received sponsor exemptions into next week’s Dinah Shore. They are Grace Park of Arizona State, the No. 1-ranked player in the MasterCard Collegiate golf rankings; Marisa Baena of Arizona, Beth Bauer of Duke and Caryn Wilson of Rancho Mirage. . . . TearDrop Golf Co. has acquired the California Golf Tour and added it to its 44-event developmental tour. The Queen Mary Open in Long Beach May 26-30 is part of the tour’s West Coast schedule.

USC hosts the Cleveland Golf Southwestern Intercollegiate Invitational on Monday and Tuesday at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village. Other teams invited are defending NCAA champion Pepperdine, Arizona State, Augusta State, Brigham Young, California, Cal State Northridge, Fresno State, Oregon, Oregon State, San Jose State and Washington.