He Has SCGA Amateur Venue Down Pat

If there is such a thing as a home-course edge in golf, it will surely belong to Pat Duncan in the 101st Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur Championship starting today at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club.

Duncan, 44, started playing at the northern San Diego County layout when he was 7, worked there in various odd jobs as a teenager and has won the club championship 14 years in a row and 17 times in the last 18 years.

“Playing the course for all these years is definitely going to give me an advantage as far as course strategy goes,” said Duncan, an eight-time city amateur champion in San Diego, “but you’ve still got to hit the shots, man.”

Duncan, a landscape contractor, will not have history on his side: Not since 1977, when Doug Clarke won at La Jolla Country Club, has a player won the SCGA Amateur on his home course.

And Duncan, the 1990 SCGA Amateur champion and 1998 SCGA Mid-Amateur champion, will be up against a formidable field of 93 golfers that includes at least six other obvious contenders:

* John Pate, 40, of Santa Barbara, brother of PGA Tour player Steve Pate, is the defending champion and will be trying to become the first player since Craig Steinberg in 1991 and ’92 to win consecutive titles.

* Steinberg, a 42-year-old Van Nuys optometrist, is trying to join Paul Hunter, who won in 1908, ‘09, ‘21, ’24 and ‘26, as the event’s only five-time winners. Steinberg also won in 1988 and ’97.

* Tim Hogarth, 34, of Northridge, the 1996 U.S. Amateur Public Links champion and last year’s California Amateur champion, last Sunday became the first player in 49 years to successfully defend his L.A. City title.

* Scott McGihon, 31, of Palm Desert was runner-up last year.

* Steve Conway, 18, of Mission Viejo set a tournament record with a seven-under-par 65 at the SCGA Members’ Club last week in winning the CIF-SCGA High School Invitational. Conway, who will be a freshman at UCLA in the fall, was co-medalist in last year’s California Amateur Championship.

* Ed Cuff Jr., 38, of Temecula won the California Amateur Championship two years ago and was co-medalist with Conway in last year’s state amateur.

“The greens are so small here,” Duncan said of Rancho Santa Fe, “that the guy who’s going to win is probably going to be some older guy who’s a patient golfer. You’ve just got to play patient golf at the Ranch because you’re not going to hit a lot of greens and you’ve just got to go with the flow out there. You’re going to make some double bogeys. . . .

“The course looks kind of easy; it’s kind of sneaky. It looks easy, but the guy with the most patience, the guy who plays smart golf, is the guy who’s going to win down here-- you know, knowing which pins to attack and what pins not to attack because it’s a penal golf course if you try to attack it.”

So it favors a golfer who knows it best, a golfer such as Duncan?

“I’m playing OK,” he said, “but in this game you never know. I think the only guy who knows he’s going to win every time is [Tiger] Woods. He’s the only guy out there who can honestly say, ‘I’m going to win,’ and pretty much back it up.”

COMPETITION? WHAT COMPETITION?

While others were busy congratulating Woods for his record-breaking U.S. Open victory, Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star was castigating the new champion’s fellow pros.

“The golf courses don’t need to be Tiger-proofed,” Whitlock wrote. “Tiger Woods’ competitors need some heart, some competitive fire and maybe a lesson in cursing. . . .

“Woods and his dominance aren’t what’s wrong with the PGA Tour.

“His competition is the problem. They’re so fat, happy and thankful for Tiger’s arrival on the tour that they don’t even know they should be embarrassed. . . .

“Look how much golf has changed since Tiger started whipping tail on the tour. When he lapped the field in the 1997 Masters, his peers were angry, embarrassed and even hostile. Fuzzy Zoeller made comments about fried chicken and collard greens and whatever else ‘those people’ ate.

“Three years later, now that Tiger’s endorsements and TV-ratings appeal have fattened everyone else’s wallets, these guys couldn’t care less about beating Tiger Woods.

“The 24-year-old Cablanasian is a meal ticket for a bunch of uncompetitive, thirtysomething white guys. If these guys rolled up their sleeves and put tattoos on their biceps, the PGA Tour would resemble the NBA.

“You think Shawn Kemp is fat, happy, lazy and unwilling to play defense? You should’ve been at Pebble Beach. . . . Tiger posted a 65 on Thursday, and 155 golfers melted like Scottie Pippen in the fourth quarter of a Game 7.”

WEATHERING THE STORM

A television station in Tampa, Fla., received more than 3,000 complaints via telephone and e-mail Sunday after cutting away from Woods’ historic finish at Pebble Beach to report dangerous weather in the Tampa Bay area.

Later, WFLA Channel 8 broke into “Dateline NBC” to apologize.

“We interrupt this program to apologize to thousands of our viewers,” anchor Yolanda Fernandez said. “We mistakenly preempted the last few historic minutes of the U.S. Open with urgent weather information.”

IS IT THE BALL?

Nike said it has been flooded with calls from players who want to test its Nike golf ball and retailers who want to sell it after Woods used the ball while winning by the largest margin in a major championship.

“Obviously putting such a historical moment into context is our next goal,” Mike Kelly, marketing director of Nike Golf, told the Associated Press. “Both golfers and non-golfers saw what happened, now it’s our job to leverage that into a commercial success.”

Nike has 1% of the golf-market share. Woods formally switched from Titleist balls only two weeks before the U.S. Open.

DRIVING FOR DOLLARS

Karrie Webb can bag her second major of the year by winning this weekend’s McDonald’s LPGA Championship at Wilmington, Del.--plus pick up an extra $250,000 from the Nabisco Grand Slam Challenge and keep herself in line for a $2.5-million bonus.

After winning the Nabisco Championship in March at Rancho Mirage, Webb has a chance to become the first LPGA player to win a Grand Slam.

A second major title this year will earn her a $250,000 bonus and a third will earn her $1 million in bonus money. Winning all four majors--the Women’s U.S. Open and the du Maurier Classic complete the Grand Slam circuit--will earn her a $2.5-million bonus.

“The Nabisco Grand Slam Challenge is a great program,” said Webb, who started sluggishly with a one-over 72 Thursday. “If I am fortunate enough to win, it will make hoisting up my second major championship trophy of the season that much sweeter.”

LPGA Hall of Famer Pat Bradley came closest to winning the women’s Grand Slam, in 1986, faltering only in the Women’s U.S. Open, where she finished fifth.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

It was probably only a matter of time, but police in Honolulu have uncovered an alleged bribery scheme over tee times at the nation’s busiest golf course.

Two starters at Ala Wai golf course near Waikiki were arrested this week and accused of taking thousands of dollars in bribes for prime tee times, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported.

The newspaper reported that police used surveillance cameras and stakeouts in an eight-month undercover investigation. Detectives said the cameras caught the employees taking cash out of the register and charging standby golfers $5 to $6 more than the standard greens fee of $22 per golfer.

“Right now it looks like they were averaging maybe between $60 and $120 a day cash that they were accepting for these tee times,” police Lt. William Kato said.

More arrests are expected.

SHORT PUTTS

Arnold Palmer Golf Co. sold the rights to Arnold Palmer’s name and brand to Callaway Golf, which signed Palmer through 2012 and will have him promote its Rule 35 ball. . . . Ten male and 10 female members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, among them Chi Chi Rodriguez and JoAnne Carner, will play in a $1-million tournament in November at St. Augustine, Fla.