He’d Rather Be Lucky and Good

He broke his wrist and hand when his car rear-ended a slow-moving truck on the freeway. He tripped on a boat dock and broke his other wrist. He was riding his bicycle in his driveway and was struck by a deer. He bruised his hip in a car accident as a passenger on his way to a banquet.

Last year, Steve Pate played six times on the Nationwide Tour and won $10,909. The news was better on the PGA Tour, where Pate finished 180th on the list, but that wasn’t high enough, so he went to qualifying school -- 19 years after his first trip there -- to try to get his card back.

And Pate did just that. Pate has had hard luck and he has had bad luck since his string of injuries began in 1996, but he has been around long enough to know there is some good luck out there if you work for it. So three months from his 43rd birthday, this six-time tournament winner, a member of two Ryder Cup teams, is back on the tour, trying to make some waves again.

He has only one victory since 1992, the 1998 CVS Charity Classic, but last week at the Hope was a decent start for Pate, who began with three 67s, finished with a 69 and wound up tied for 41st at 18 under par. His back still bothers him, and he can’t hit as far as he’d like, but Pate is trying to jump-start his career one more time.

“I’m driving it straight, but every so often one goes way over there,” Pate said, pointing to the parking lot.

Pate can still hit his irons close and make putts, as he did in the 1999 Masters, when he set a tournament record with seven consecutive birdies and tied for fourth.

Pate is playing at Pebble Beach, San Diego and Tucson and would welcome a sponsor’s exemption into the Nissan Open at Riviera.

That’s not far from UCLA, where Pate was an All-American and earned a degree in psychology, which should come in handy to analyze what has happened to him. “I don’t know that I’m back,” he said, “but I guess I am or I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

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From Lee Trevino, when asked his worst fear: “There’s not anything I’m scared of except my wife.”

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This week at Scottsdale, Vijay Singh is going for his 11th consecutive top-10 finish. Greg Norman was the last to do that in 1994.

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Randy McWilliams is a trainer and nutrition specialist for athletes and runs a restaurant in Palm Springs. McWilliams said Robert Gamez ordered his favorite breakfast Friday, when he shot 60 at Indian Wells: two hamburger patties, two eggs over easy, French toast, tomato, bananas, diet cola.

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Michelle Wie update: She doesn’t have any more PGA Tour events on her schedule, but the 14-year-old prodigy’s acceptance of an invitation to play in the Evian Masters on the European LPGA Tour in July increases speculation she may try to qualify for the Women’s British Open to be played the following week.

If Wie made the Curtis Cup team, she would be exempt into the final round of qualifying on Monday before the British Open at Sunningdale, England, July 29-Aug. 1.

Wie already has accepted sponsor’s invitations to play the LPGA Tour’s Safeway International, March 18-21, in Phoenix; the Kraft Nabisco Championship, March 25-28, at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage; and the Michelob Ultra Open, May 6-9, in Williamsburg, Va.

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Jerry Pate, the 1976 U.S. Open champion who begins his Champions Tour career next week after a long battle with shoulder surgery, said he had only one question about Wie.

“To see if she really is 14,” Pate said.

“She looked like she was about 22 to me. I think they have her birth certificate wrong.

“What a golf swing. I am telling you, less than half the guys on the PGA Tour have a swing as good as hers. She has got one of the greatest golf swings I’ve ever seen.”

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The debate on how to go about replacing Indian Wells Country Club as part of the rotation for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic is sure to be controversial, as the course has been part of the tournament since it began in 1960.

Here’s a suggestion: Don’t replace it. Just play La Quinta (and Tamarisk when its turn comes up), Bermuda Dunes and the Palmer Course at PGA West, have the amateurs play the three courses, make the cut on Saturday, have the pros play the final round at PGA West and you’ve got a 72-hole pro-am.

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The sixth Tim Salmon tournament will be played Monday at Coto de Caza. The event benefits Family Solutions and Laurel House, which aids abused and at-risk children. Details: (714) 835-1333.