THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 12, 1996 TAG: 9607120610
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA AND STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: 100 lines
Workers at the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill began preparing Thursday for a hurricane they hope they never see.
Not long after the final groups finished their rounds, workers began dismantling some smaller tents on the golf course, a precaution against the potential ravages of Hurricane Bertha. When they finished, they began taking down the skyboxes that surround the 18th green, then the large tent that rests behind the Kingsmill clubhouse.
``Weather, weather, weather, that's all anyone's talking about,'' said Johnnie Bender, the tournament's executive director. ``Whether the weather will reach us or turn the other way, that's the question.''
It was one no one had a definitive answer to.
The PGA Tour has a contract with a meteorologist who travels from event to event, Stewart Williams. By the end of Thursday's round, Williams was advising Tour officials that Bertha's winds had decreased significantly and that they could expect early morning showers today that would become heavier later.
``We'll try to play golf,'' PGA official Mark Russell said. ``If it rains us out, well, we've been rained out before. We'll regroup and see what we can do.''
Bender's evacuation committee has 50 automobiles positioned to get the players off the course quickly.
``And we want all the time we can get to get the fans off the course,'' Russell added.
Short of several days of torrential rain, Bender said her goal is to crown a champion on Sunday. In 1982, the then-Anheuser-Busch Golf Classic paid champion Calvin Peete a full purse for just three rain-plagued days of golf. At the time, it was the first tournament in Tour history to make that decision.
``We have 2,000 volunteers, fans and corporate sponsors,'' she said. ``Monday, they have to get back to work. We'd like to finish on Sunday.''
McGOVERN'S WOES: Jim McGovern has not had to make a trip to the PGA Tour's Qualifying School since 1991, but he's flirting with one this fall.
The former Old Dominion University golfer, who has been in the top 100 on the money list the past four seasons, is barely in the top 200 a little past the season's midway point. If he does not crack the top 125 by season's end, it will be back to Q School.
``My patience level is much higher,'' said McGovern, who shot an even-par 71 Thursday in the Michelob Championship at Kingsmill. ``I think I've grown up in that sense. I'm not sweating it that it's July and I'm not playing well.''
McGovern has made just six of 19 cuts and his best finish is a tie for 35th place. He's 196th on the money list with $27,111.
``It's been a struggle,'' McGovern said. ``I just haven't putted well. I'm starting to piece it together, so I'm looking forward to the second half.
``At the beginning of the year it was a little hard keeping my chin up. I went out and hit it well and turned 70s into 74s.''
But it's been a good year overall for McGovern regardless. His second daughter, Emily, was born in April. He also has a 17-month-old, Melanie. McGovern said they have helped him develop perspective on his golf game.
``Neither one of them knows whether I shoot 65 or 75,'' McGovern said.
HOCH'S HARANGUE: It would be a huge mistake to call leader Scott Hoch a fan of the British Open.
``I don't like it, don't like it, don't like it,'' he said when asked if he was going to play next week at Royal Lytham in St. Anne's, England. ``If I don't enjoy playing a place, then it doesn't make a difference how big a tournament it is. And the British Opens I've played in in the past I haven't enjoyed.''
Hoch saved his most scalding comments for St. Andrews, the game's birthplace.
``It's the worst piece of mess I've ever seen; that covers about everything,'' he offered. ``I think they had some sheep and goats there that died and they just covered them over.''
Hoch was among the players who asked Bender to reserve him a seat on the airplanes Michelob has reserved to ferry players to Newark International for a late-Sunday night flight to Britain. Despite that, he said he almost certainly isn't going.
``I've had some foreign caddies who've worked for me before and I asked them if this was a place I'd like,'' he said. ``They said no.
``You go from nice weather here - in the 90s - to cold, rainy weather there,'' he added. ``I realize it's the biggest tournament in the world, if you win it. I'm very major-conscious, but if I go to a place I don't enjoy very much, I'm just wasting time. And the fact is that there are a lot of foreign players who feel that way now about the United States Open.
``I realize there are a number of players here who don't agree with me, but that's OK. They can have their opinion.''
OFF THE SCOREBOARD: Larry Rinker, among a group or four players two shots off the lead at 66, finished 18 with an unusual up-and-down. His second shot hit the scoreboard, caromed off scoreboard worker Lyn Dunn's arm and landed in a bush.
Had the scoreboard not been there, Rinker's ball would have ended up in the hazard left of the green. Instead, he got a free drop out of the bush, hit a nice chip and made a 12-foot par putt. Then he walked over to Dunn, who was icing down his wrist, apologized and gave Dunn the offending ball. ILLUSTRATION: MIKE HEFFNER
The Virginian-Pilot
Larry Rinker, second from right, receives help from a course marshal
after hitting the scoreboard on 18. by CNB