Seasoned Pro Pepper Shoots Into the Lead After Three Rounds

After three days, 54 holes and 203 shots, one thing you can say about the Nabisco Dinah Shore is that it’s all Dottie Pepper’s to win, just as surely as her dog Furman is overweight.

Furman’s a chow, but technically not a chow hound, Pepper said.

“He’s solid . . . well taken care of,” she said.

When the last round of the Dinah Shore begins today at Mission Hills Country Club, dog-lover Pepper’s three-shot lead isn’t all that fat, but it’s looking pretty solid.

She shot a 67 Saturday that included an eagle, and she may need to be bold again today.

“You’ve got to go out and play hard,” she said. “I didn’t get into this position by playing it safe.”

Her position right now is the one called out front and pulling away. Pepper’s 54-hole total of 203 is only two shots off Amy Alcott’s tournament record.

After taking Meg Mallon into account, only two players--Kelly Robbins and Juli Inkster--are even as close as six shots.

That doesn’t mean it’s over, just sort of difficult, Inkster said.

“Maybe somebody from the back can sneak in,” Inkster said. “It’s going to be hard, but you never know. Dottie is a great front-runner. We just have to go out and try to put some pressure on her and see what happens.”

Mallon is the closest to Pepper, three shots back at 10-under 206. She would have been closer except for an ill-timed double-bogey on the last hole when she flew the green, barely moved her ball on her first chip, left her second chip short and two-putted from five feet.

And you know what that means, right?

“Unfortunately, that adds up to a double,” said Mallon, who signed for a 71.

Inkster followed her 66 with a round of 71 that was noteworthy because of what it didn’t have, namely a birdie after the seventh hole. She did manage one very important par, however, when she found the water with a seven-wood, but hit a pitching wedge from 120 yards to about three inches, then rolled in her putt to save par.

It’s not a normal par, but Inkster saw the bright side.

“Sure beats a bogey,” she said.

Robbins rebounded from a 73 with a 67 that featured a birdie at No. 18.

Nobody else is within seven shots of Pepper, who isn’t playing at all like someone who hasn’t won since 1996 when she was good enough to win four times. The 33-year-old from Jupiter, Fla., has 14 tournament victories, but has struggled with her game on and off since then.

There were signs all was not right, said Pepper, most notably when her shots took off sideways.

Pepper began slowly, with only a bogey and seven pars through the first eight holes, but all that changed in a hurry on No. 9. On the par-five, 508-yard hole, Pepper was 79 yards from the hole with a sand wedge and promptly sent the ball way up in the air and way down into the hole for eagle.

Her reaction?

“Pretty cool,” she said.

Pepper said she gave it a good ride, all right.

“It was a hard sand wedge, but it wasn’t nuclear or anything,” she said.

As for the nuclear shots, they were the ones that appeared on the greens. Pepper played the back in four under, but she held her round together with a trio of mind-bending, par-saving putts--a curling 25-footer on No. 15, a 12-footer at No. 17 and a 10-footer at 18.

That made Mallon’s double bogey at No. 18 harder to take, although she was ready to shake it off.

“I just need to get over the double,” Mallon said. “It’s Saturday, not Sunday. I need to remember that and go try to catch Dottie.”

That’s the name of the game today. With a chance to add a second Dinah Shore title to her major resume (she won in 1992), Pepper said she’s comfortable playing with the lead. Just don’t call today’s round a match-play situation, even though Mallon is the only player within even four shots of her.

Well, maybe it is sort of match play.

“If it is, it’s a match-play situation between me, myself and I,” Pepper said. “Maybe it’s a three-way match.”

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The Leaders

NABISCO DINAH SHORE--Par 72

Dottie Pepper 70 66 67 -- 203 -13

Meg Mallon 66 69 71 -- 206 -10

Kelly Robbins 69 73 67 -- 209 -7

Juli Inkster 72 66 71 -- 209 -7

Se Ri Pak 73 69 69 -- 211 -5

Mayumi Hirase 70 72 69 -- 211 -5

Kris Tschetter 68 70 73 -- 211 -5

Janice Moodie 69 68 75 -- 212 -4

Maria Hjorth 77 68 68 -- 213 -3

Cindy McCurdy 70 74 69 -- 213 -3

Dale Eggeling 73 70 70 -- 213 -3

Helen Alfredsson 69 71 73 -- 213 -3

Hiromi Kobayashi 70 69 74 -- 213 -3

Donna Andrews 70 69 74 -- 213 -3

Nancy Lopez 72 73 69 -- 214 -2

Catriona Matthew 72 73 69 -- 214 -2

Michele Redman 71 74 69 -- 214 -2

Karrie Webb 73 71 70 -- 214 -2

Annika Sorenstam 70 73 71 -- 214 -2

Pat Bradley 73 69 72 -- 214 -2

Sherri Steinhauer 70 72 72 -- 214 -2

* COMPLETE SCORES, PAGE 16