Duval, Couples Better by Far

Scott Hoch cordially invites you to Sherwood Country Club this afternoon to watch David Duval and Fred Couples win themselves a golf tournament.

Hoch and his partner, Scott McCarron, are in second place and six shots back after Duval-Couples pasted a 10-under-par 62 on the field Saturday at the Franklin Templeton Shark Shootout.

“It’s pretty much over,” Hoch said.

“It’s not over, c’mon,” McCarron said playfully.

Asked if he might predict a point when victory would be assured, Hoch said, “About when I tee it up [today].”

“By the way,” McCarron jabbed back, “what’s second prize worth?”

The Shootout is like the Ryder Cup, only with 12 small continents instead of two large ones. In fact, it’s so much like the Ryder Cup that Jean Van de Velde didn’t play here, either.

They played the better-ball format after Friday’s alternate-shot session, and again it provided little resistance to Duval and Couples, whose 61 in the opening round meant they had a two-day total of 21-under 123. The merry Scotts stand at 66-63--129, and the teams of Peter Jacobsen-John Cook and Andrew Magee-Jay Haas trail by seven shots.

As if Couples and Duval, already legendary for their easy-going style, needed more reason to loosen up. In fact, any looser and their caddies would have to pour them into their spikes for today’s final round, a scramble format.

“To be six shots up, I think we’re definitely looking forward to coming out [today],” Couples said, grinning mischievously, “just blasting off the tees and having a good time. It’s not over, but, in a scramble, I think, we’re going to be OK. I like our chances.”

Then he winked hard.

A score of 58 in the easiest of scoring formats would secure the Shootout record (currently 34 under by Couples and Ray Floyd in 1990), just the way host Greg Norman would want it, if Hoch had it right. He said with a chuckle that Norman paired the two long hitters to ensure attractive defending champions next year, when the event moves to Norman’s Great White Shark course in Miami.

“You never know what he’ll say,” Duval said of Hoch.

The first of six groups teed off at 7 a.m., because CBS had a full day of college football to televise on the other coast.

As a result of the tee time--the early foursomes arrived at the course at about 5:30 a.m.--there had to be more people milling around the first tee at Westlake Village Golf Course, the muni down the street, than there were at Sherwood at the same time. It surely was quieter at Sherwood.

Dumped by Callaway because of what it considered his reckless lifestyle choices, John Daly is spending the tournament testing drivers and irons, and so far it has proved dangerous for the Hidden Valley wildlife.

Still, Daly and Chip Beck shot a 65, one of the day’s better rounds, and Daly appeared at peace with his new lifestyle.

“I’ve got to do what makes me happy,” he said. “I’ve been living the last four or five years for everybody else. You can’t live life that way. It’s too short.”

Many, apparently including Ely Callaway, feared Daly might drink himself out of the game.

“A lot of people need to evaluate their own lives instead of evaluating mine,” he said without rancor. “I can’t tell you how many drunks come up to me and say, ‘John, you can’t drink.’ I say, ‘Look at yourself, pard.’ ”