Leaders Take 66 Route

Brent Schwarzrock figured he’d be fishing this week.

Instead he’s tied for the first-round lead of the Nissan Open after shooting a 66 without benefit of a practice round after making the field as an alternate.

Kirk Triplett was hardly playing the course at Riviera Country Club blind.

He won on the Pacific Palisades course last season--his first victory in 266 PGA Tour events. The charm returned Thursday, leaving Triplett in a four-way tie for the lead at five under in a group that includes Sergio Garcia and Tom Scherrer.

Seven other players, among them Japan’s Shigeki Maruyama and Joe Ozaki, were a stroke back in a tightly bunched field. A remarkable 85 players were within five strokes of the lead.

Davis Love III and former Nissan champion Billy Mayfair were in the group two strokes back, and John Daly was among those three off the lead.

Scherrer drew the often difficult challenge of playing with Tiger Woods and the considerable gallery that accompanies him.

Scherrer had the round worth watching: a bogey-free 66. Woods shot an even-par 71 that included three bogeys.

“He’s the best ever, so I wanted to make a good impression,” said Scherrer, whose first tour victory came at the Kemper Open last season.

Somebody dared to suggest Scherrer dragged Woods--still looking for his first victory of 2001--around the course.

“I think Tiger kind of dragged me around a little,” Scherrer said. “I’m ranked 90th in the world. I don’t drag anybody around.”

Nobody had a more unlikely round than Schwarzrock, who back home in Sea Island, Ga., is Love’s somewhat unlikely fishing buddy.

“I live in a trailer in his yard,” Schwarzrock joked. “Nah, I live about a mile down the road from Davis.”

Schwarzrock first earned his tour card at the 1998 qualifying school, but back trouble knocked him out for the season after one round.

“Three years ago in Hawaii, my first tour event,” he said. “I had to fly home it was so bad. I have two degenerative disks and some joint problems.”

With rehabilitation, a stretching regimen and visits to a Houston therapist every six weeks, the back is no longer a concern for Schwarzrock, a 6-foot-4, 220-pounder who likes to swing from the heels.

He qualified for the tour again this season, finishing in a tie for the final spot.

A little work with sports psychologist Bob Rotella has helped shore up his putting, and Schwarzrock seems a little closer to reaching the potential Love so often has mentioned.

It took quite a bit for Schwarzrock to make it this far.

“We were fishing Friday and Davis called and said I was the 13th alternate,” he said. “I was like, ‘There’s no chance.’ Monday I was seventh alternate. Tuesday was when it all started happening. You’re three, you’re two, you’re first. ‘My God, I’ve got to go to L.A. tonight.’ ”

He and his caddie, Henry Diana, caught a plane from Jacksonville, Fla., about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, flew all night to Los Angeles--then got lost on the way to the hotel.

“Unfortunately. I was driving,” Diana said. “The Holiday Inn Select in Beverly Hills. It probably took us about an hour and a half.”

It was 4:30 a.m. before their heads hit the pillows, and all they could do was scout the course during a pro-am Wednesday, walking about five holes with Love.

That’s about as blind as it gets on the PGA Tour, but Schwarzrock might have scored lower had he not bogeyed two par fives, No. 11 and No. 17.

“I just tried to hit two three-woods too hard,” he said.

Triplett enjoyed a day of being called “D.C.”--defending champion.

He’d love to repeat.

“For me, it would be my second victory and the same tournament twice,” he said. “So maybe I’d take every other tournament off and just play this one each year.”

Given the recent history of low scores on the tour, Triplett was hardly stunned by Schwarzrock’s--though it must be said that with the wind up in the afternoon, the 66s by Garcia and Triplett were more impressive.

“Sometimes playing a course blind is almost to your advantage,” Triplett said. “You don’t know where the real pitfalls are, and you don’t know how close you are to hitting into those bad spots. You don’t know how narrow that little portion of the 10th green is back there. You don’t know how good a wedge shot you have to hit to get it in there.

“You don’t know if you hit it above the pin on No. 6, you’re really going to have a hard time two-putting. Standing on the tee, you don’t know that.”

Schwarzrock can just be happy he made it to L.A.

Last year, he missed a chance at an alternate entry in Atlanta.

“I was fishing,” he said. “I was on a boat in a river. They said, ‘You’ve got a tee time in an hour.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t think we’ll make that.’ ”

The next question is whether Woods can make up all this ground--he’s only five strokes back, but behind 37 others.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LEADERS

Riviera Country Club, Par 71

Brent Schwarzrock: 66 -5

Tom Scherrer: 66 -5

Sergio Garcia: 66 -5

Kirk Triplett: 66 -5

Joe Ozaki: 67 -4

Shigeki Maruyama: 67 -4

Bradley Hughes: 67 -4

Edward Fryatt: 67 -4

Bob Tway: 67 -4

Greg Chalmers: 67 -4

Rocco Mediate: 67 -4

* SCORES, TEE TIMES: D14

*

NOT UP TO PAR

After a 71, Tiger Woods was back on the range. Thomas Bonk’s column. D14

SIGN OF TIMES

He turned autograph hunting into an art form. D14

NOTES, D14