DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710110503

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                      LENGTH:   63 lines

KINGSMILL PREPARING FOR RECORD ATTENDANCE FRIDAY'S CROWD WAS THE TOURNAMENT'S 2ND-LARGEST EVER.

What do officials of the Michelob Championship do when the tournament draws its second-biggest crowd ever on a Friday?

Answer: Smile broadly and brace for the weekend.

As of 6:30 Friday evening, officials had recorded ticket sales of 25,643. Like an election, all precincts hadn't been counted. But officials figured the late additions to the tally would be minimal.

The previous single-day record of 27,853 came on the final day in 1990, the year in which Richmond native Lanny Wadkins won and crowd favorite Greg Norman made an appearance.

Whatever Friday's total was, it almost assures this will be the largest collective crowd in the event's 17-year history at Kingsmill.

This time around, Fred Couples seems to be the man of the hour. His crowds were immense all of Friday, with as many as 4,000 following him around the course at times.

``If Fred only knew how much I sweated to get a good look at him,'' said Barb Leavy of York County.

It didn't hurt that Couples was playing his way up the leaderboard most of the day, finishing at 6-under par which tied him for 10th place at the halfway point.

In fact, it didn't hurt that the majority of the ``name'' players are performing well: Couples, Payne Stewart, Lee Janzen and Curtis Strange, players who have all won major championships, are in contention.

``The names,'' Suffolk's Ken Stone said. ``That's what's drawing these people.''

Friday's conditions were near-perfect, with temperatures around 80 most of the day and an occasional breeze blowing through the course.

``I think the weather is a big reason for the big crowd,'' said Bart Cosgrove of Virginia Beach. ``In years past, you'd get rain, thunderstorms and it would be smokin' hot. But that's what you get in July.''

Tournament officials said that the phones at tournament headquarters started ringing for tickets almost non-stop three weeks ago.

``Our pre-tournament sales indicated that this was going to be really big,'' said tournament director Johnnie Bender. ``So three weeks ago I increased our number of printed tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday by 5,000 each day. We're ready to handle 35,000 to 40,000 on the weekend.''

They weren't prepared, however, for what happened Thursday. At noon on the tournament's opening day, their single-day tickets sold out.

What did they do?

``Started printing new ones ... at Warp 10,'' said David Conrod, tournament coordinator of media relations.

They finished Thursday with 24,998 tickets sold, which itself was within 3,000 tickets of the single-day record.

The single-season record for the six days on which tickets are sold is 114,179, also set in 1990.

Bender said the tournament had already enlisted 28 buses to transport fans from parking sites. On a hunch, she added four more buses at the last minute.

``Everything has run according to plan,'' Bender said. ``The weather's been great. And the scoreboard is great.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Portsmouth's Rita Nichols was part of the crowd of 25,643, the

second-largest ever for a Friday round.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu