Timetable Set for Ryder Cup Charity Plan

The never-ending Ryder Cup player-compensation issue may have ended after all.

Jim Awtrey, chief executive officer of the PGA of America, said Saturday the PGA will have a plan in place by the end of the year to distribute money from the Ryder Cup to the players’ charities.

“It’s totally in agreement with our philosophy,” Awtrey told CBS.

Several players on the U.S. team, including Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara, David Duval and Phil Mickelson, have been outspoken on the subject, which has been a major distraction during the PGA Championship.

Awtrey said the players do not want to be personally compensated.

“The play-for-pay issue is not an issue any longer,” he said.

According to Awtrey, the players are “perfectly comfortable” with the PGA of America’s mandate to have a plan by the end of 1999, which would not include next month’s Ryder Cup competition at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.

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Paul Azinger, the 1993 PGA champion, missed the cut in his last three PGAs, but he’s around for the weekend at Medinah. He made the two-over cut on the nose.

Azinger’s one-under-par 71 Saturday left him in a good mood, but he was really thinking big after starting birdie, par, birdie.

“I was thinking, ‘If I make 10 more birdies and no more bogeys that might be enough in the two days,’ ” he said. “I wasn’t able to do that.”

Azinger, 39, has one top-five finish in a major (fifth at the 1998 Masters) since he missed the 1994 season because of cancer surgery.

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He’s No. 11 in the European Ryder Cup standings, based on money winnings, but Bernhard Langer doesn’t want to put any pressure on himself. He shot a two-over 74 and is four-over 220.

“You don’t think of it while you are playing, but you talk about it before and after, and obviously it’s on my mind,” Langer said.

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For what it’s worth, Mark Brooks’ hole in one at the 206-yard No. 17 with a three-iron was the 29th ace in the PGA Championship since 1970.

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Hale Irwin missed three fairways in the first two rounds and was four shots out of the lead. Irwin missed three fairways Saturday and is 12 shots out of the lead. Irwin had 10 fives on his scorecard and finished with a six-over 78.

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It’s always first things first for Colin Montgomerie, who isn’t all that satisfied with his play, but doesn’t want to know why, at least right away.

Said Montgomerie: “I’ll see my caddie after lunch to find out why it’s going left and sometimes right.”

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John Daly’s victory in the 1991 PGA Championship is the choice as the No. 1 special moment in the event’s history, according to both a panel of golf writers and a nationwide poll of golf fans who voted via the Internet.

The 1997 victory of Davis Love III was runner-up.