The Little Pro Once Had a Big Day at Medinah

Next week, when the PGA Championship is played at Medinah (Ill.) Country Club, renowned teaching pro Eddie Merrins is planning on being there, not just because he has some history with the place, but also because he taught it a lesson once.

Before serving as the head pro at Bel-Air Country Club for 40 years, Merrins had been a teacher at Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y. But just two weeks before he signed on at Bel-Air, in 1962, Merrins played in the Western Open at Medinah, and shot a 66 in the third round -- a score that held up as the course record for 37 years.

Merrins, who turned 74 Friday, is now the professional emeritus at Bel-Air as well as an author. “Play a Round with the Little Pro” is his new book.

His 66 stood as the record until Skip Kendall shot a 65 in the 1999 PGA Championship on the famed No. 3 course.

“It was going to happen sooner or later,” Merrins said. “And a lot of great players took a run at it.”

The No. 3 course was 7,111 yards in 1962, and with the course significantly altered since then with different routing, plus an official length of 7,561 yards, it’s clearly a different layout. But for the old course, Merrins’ record can’t be touched.

Merrins shot 76-76 the first two rounds, then moved from a tie for 82nd to 11th with his 66, playing with Ken Venturi and Lloyd Mangrum. In the last round, Merrins shot a 74, which beat playing partner Jack Nicklaus’ 75 and Tommy Jacobs’ 77. He wound up 18th.

At Medinah next week, Merrins hopes that Tom Pernice, one of his players when he coached at UCLA, can play his way onto the Ryder Cup team. Another one of his ex-Bruins, Duffy Waldorf, is an aide de camp to Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman and still another, Corey Pavin, is Lehman’s assistant, plus a tournament winner a couple of weeks ago.

It’s going to be a big week for Merrins, whose biggest week came at Medinah only 44 years ago.

He has some advice for Tiger Woods.

“He won at Medinah in 1999, so you can’t say he can’t play the course,” he said. “But he’s got to hit the ball in the fairway. That’s the key.”

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Star power: Woods, the British Open champion, will be paired with Masters champion Phil Mickelson and U.S. Open winner Geoff Ogilvy for the first two rounds of the PGA Championship.

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Tiger factor: CBS scored a 4.3 overnight Nielsen rating for Sunday’s fourth round of the Buick Open, which Woods won by three shots. That’s a 23% increase from last year’s 3.5 rating, when Woods tied for second and Vijay Singh won.

ABC’s final-round, tape-delayed coverage Sunday of the Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham, won by Sherri Steinhauer, wasn’t such a hit. The overnight rating was down 19% to a 1.3 from last year. Michelle Wie tied for 26th and Annika Sorenstam tied for 31st.

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There was a major change in the women’s rankings this week, with Wie falling five places, from second to seventh. Wie’s performance at Royal Lytham wasn’t why she dropped, although it may have been why she fired her caddie.

She fell in the rankings because of a change made in the LPGA Tour’s world ranking system in which the points accumulated over two years will be divided by a minimum of 35 tournaments -- not the exact number of events a player has played. When the rankings made their debut in February, the minimum divisible number was 15, which also was the number of events Wie had played.

The new second-ranked player is Lorena Ochoa, who tied for fourth at Lytham. Morgan Pressel, who tied for 65th at the British Open, dropped 10 places to 26th and Steinhauer moved up 46 places to 20th.

Ochoa, by the way, leads the LPGA with a 69.81 scoring average. Sorenstam, third at 70.36, has won the scoring title the last five years.

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More Tiger: Woods earned $864,000 at the Buick and now has made $2,567,740 at the Buick Open alone, in eight appearances -- more than Arnold Palmer ($1,861,857) made in his 50-year PGA Tour career.

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Did Paul Azinger violate PGA Tour rules and pull out of an event in Milwaukee so he could play in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas? That’s what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported this week, quoting Azinger telling alternate Dicky Pride, who replaced Azinger, that Azinger’s father was to undergo surgery. Azinger later told reporters the surgery was postponed and he hit the poker table in Las Vegas.

The PGA Tour requires players to commit to an event the Friday before and if they withdraw, to do so in writing, complete with an explanation.

Azinger played the Buick Open last week and said he would have pulled out if he had not been eliminated from the poker championship, the newspaper reported.

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Phil and Amy Mickelson were up early last Saturday, before 4 a.m. By 5:30 a.m., they were standing outside the Murphy Canyon Wal-Mart in San Diego to greet about 1,200 children the Mickelsons were sponsoring through their foundation in a $250,000 back-to-school shopping spree.

Mickelson posed for pictures and shook hands with every child, teacher or parent who wished as they entered the store and even helped some of the young people pick out backpacks and offered shopping tips.

It was the second year of the Mickelson Charitable Foundation’s Start Smart program, which provides clothing and supplies for elementary school students selected by principals on the basis of need and achievement.

“Our goal is to give these kids some of the advantages enjoyed by more fortunate young people, to improve their self-esteem and encourage them to work hard in school,” Mickelson said.

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Vaughn Taylor moved into the top 10 at seventh on the Ryder Cup points list with his tie for fourth at the Buick Open, bumping John Rollins out of the top 10 to 11th. There are still four rookies in place to make the team -- Taylor, J.J. Henry, Zach Johnson and Brett Wetterich. Scott Verplank, a potential captain’s pick, also tied for fourth at the Buick and improved his position from 22nd to 18th.

Two more tournaments remain to settle the standings -- the International this week and the PGA Championship.

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Former Dodgers pitcher Rick Rhoden, 53, tied for sixth last week in a Champions Tour event, his first top-10 finish this year, and earned $59,500. With $117,176 in 10 events, Rhoden is 70th on the money list and has a shot at a partial exemption on the Champions Tour for 2007 if he ends the year in the top 50.

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Tom Watson will host a Driving 4 Life tournament Nov. 6 at Riviera Country Club. The event benefits the ALS Therapy Development Foundation. Driving 4 Life is a national fundraising campaign organized by Watson, his caddie Bruce Edwards and former PGA Tour pro Jeff Julian. The campaign has raised more than $3.5 million. Both Edwards and Julian died of ALS in 2004. Details: (617) 441-7295.

Elgin Baylor, Tommy Davis, Willie Gault, Reggie Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ronnie Lott, Joe Morgan, Bill Russell and Barry Sanders are among the celebrities that are expected to play in the second Jim Brown celebrity tournament Monday at MountainGate Country Club. The event benefits the AmerI-Can Foundation for Social Change, which is a community outreach program designed to curb violence. Details: (310) 652-7884.