Inman Finds Himself in a Familiar Position

By THOMAS BONK

Oct. 28, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Welcome to the Joe Inman Classic at Joe Inman Country Club. . . . All right, it’s really the SBC Senior Classic at Wilshire Country Club but there is clearly an Inman tint to the thing.

Last year, he won the tournament. Two years ago, he won the tournament. And after Friday’s first round, Inman is leading the tournament.

What does that say about the tournament?

“Weird,” Inman said. “Very weird.”

You could build a case for that, all right. It is sort of spooky that Inman hasn’t managed to win anywhere else, which is why he might decide to just tear the place down, rock by rock, and take it with him next year to wherever they move the tournament.

Inman wants you to know he isn’t going to do that.

“No, life goes on, man,” Inman said after opening with a six-under-par 65 and a two-shot lead over Gary McCord, Gil Morgan and Mike McCullough.

There were 28 players under par at Wilshire, its typically quick greens reduced to a crawl because of the rain overnight, so most players felt that life went on quite nicely in the first round.

One of those was McCord. Mustache twitching, McCord turned in a 67 that was probably good enough to be his whole story for the day, except that he’d switched to a new putting style for the first time in his life. McCord began putting with his left hand low on his second putt at the first hole.

McCord said he hit that first stroke quickly, hoping that partners Hale Irwin and Hubert Green wouldn’t see it. They did.

“They started laughing,” he said.

Actually, there wasn’t anything funny about McCord’s style because he started making putts from all over. He said he plans to keep the left hand low, since it didn’t really look that bad.

“If it looked really ugly, like a kid falling off his bicycle, I’d probably drop it,” McCord said.

A whole caravan of birdies dropped into holes at Wilshire, where 11 players are within three shots of Inman. One shot behind McCord, Morgan and McCullough, there is an eight-way tie at three-under 68 that includes Barry Jaeckel, Tom Kite, Hugh Baiocchi, David Graham, Ed Dougherty, Bruce Summerhays, John Bland and Christy O’Connor.

Inman doesn’t hit it very far off the tee, but held his shots on the soft greens because he hits irons without putting much spin on the ball. He birdied three of the last four holes--from 12 feet, four feet and six feet--and walked off the course with what we now recognize as his usual comportment. That would be called, well, grateful.

“I’m just so thankful I’ve had the opportunity to play,” he said “I get up every morning and just pinch myself.”

Apparently, it is not in Inman’s disposition to kick himself. He could have done that after bogeying No. 4, ending a streak of 94 consecutive holes without a bogey, three short of the Senior PGA Tour record.

It was a day for streaks to end. Larry Nelson missed a two-foot par putt at No. 17 and posted a one-over 72, ending his run of consecutive rounds at par or better at 32. Maybe Nelson should have putted left hand low.

The really interesting thing about McCord’s round was that he could play good golf with so many other things going on. He is in his last year of his deal with CBS, he’s planning his 2001 playing schedule, he’s got about 50 corporate outings, he’s talking with movie director Ron Shelton about a sequel to “Tin Cup” and he is trying to peddle an idea for a television sitcom about golf.

“Why not?” McCord said of his TV idea, involving a bunch of golf lifers in a double-wide mobile home on a municipal course. “I think people will love it. They loved ‘Happy Gilmore.’ They loved ‘Caddyshack.’ ”

Maybe they will even love his idea.

Maybe they will call it “Left Hand Low.”

While McCord is trying to move into the top 31 on the money list so he will be eligible to defend his title in next week’s Senior Tour Championship, Jaeckel is busy trying to hold down a steady job.

Jaeckel, 51, is the son of the late actor Richard Jaeckel, who appeared in “The Dirty Dozen” and “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” and spent the first years of his life growing up about two blocks from Wilshire in a house on Hudson Avenue.

Until Monday’s practice round, Jaeckel hadn’t played Wilshire in 30 years. In fact, he remembered only one thing about the course--falling into one of the creeks when he was 4.

The 1978 Tallahassee Open winner, Jaeckel played the PGA Tour from 1975-96, but he hasn’t played the senior tour regularly. He has been in only seven events this year and the SBC is his first since mid-August. He has a sponsor’s exemption at Wilshire, hoping only for a good week and a chance at playing regularly in 2001.

He said that is not his dream circumstance, though. That would be?

“To win the lottery,” he said.

Inman said he felt a huge weight lifted when his bogey-free streak ended at No. 4.

“This is not life, this is just golf,” he said.

If you play a course the way Inman has played Wilshire, then golf looks pretty easy.

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In Front

Leaders in the SBC Senior Classic at Wilshire Country Club (18-hole scores; par 71):

Joe Inman: 33 32--65 -6

Gary McCord: 33 34--67 -4

Gil Morgan: 33 34--67 -4

Mike McCullough: 34 33--67 -4