DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710110504

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                      LENGTH:   80 lines

MCCORD'S TV COMMENTARY IS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Gary McCord doesn't want to alarm anyone - least of all those who would be his competition - but his days hovering in television towers high above America's golf courses may be numbered. He turns 50 in May and that means the electric carts and fat cigars and even fatter paychecks of the Senior PGA Tour are but a snap of the fingers away.

``That's definitely not out of the equation,'' McCord said Friday from the cubbyhole at Kingsmill that this week houses the most clever coven in television golf - McCord, Bobby Clampett and David Feherty of CBS. ``But I've also got a movie due out next year. I have to take a long, hard look at things. I've got to figure out what to do.''

The way things are now, McCord plays four tournaments a year, all early and all televised by NBC.

``I play just enough to arouse my curiosity and to remember the dysfunctional brain I have and to rekindle those thoughts of how incredibly hard this game is,'' McCord said, refusing to use such an astute observation as an excuse to twirl the ends of his handlebar moustache.

Fortunately for the development of the sport on television, McCord's dysfunction began in 1973 - when he earned $499, 423rd on the money list - and carries into the present. Last year, his cash totalled a mere $2,548. He probably has sportscoats that cost more.

Television is what McCord does best, at least for the moment. That bar scene in ``Tin Cup'' wasn't Gary Cooper at High Noon.

``The main thing is that he's given people a different look at what golf is about,'' CBS executive producer Lance Barrow said. ``He's a guy they can comprehend and relate to. He looks at it all a little differently.''

Tiger Woods (can there be a golf story without his name being mentioned?) has introduced new generations and ethnic groups to the game. If they'd let him, McCord could be their most important source of education.

``Gary's a Pied Piper,'' Barrow said. ``It's really not that serious a game. Gary brings that part to it.''

At the risk of hooking into hyperbole, the entertainment business has stars galore whose act was built on the notion that they weren't remotely proficient at what they really loved, so they turned to comedy.

Jack Benny and Henny Youngman. Meadowlark Lemon. Max Patkin. The reality was that they worked as hard, if not harder, at perfecting their imperfections than the public ever imagined. One suspects the same is true for McCord, whose best lines about the players, their swings and the courses they terrorize appear slickly ad lib.

``There are a couple of (players) who are trying to get into this business, and your advice to them is they better be good in front of the camera,'' McCord said. ``And, they have to learn to write. If you write, you stay on top of things. If you write, you're fresh and new.''

So McCord writes. His first book, ``Golf for Dummies,'' came out about a year ago. It's been reprinted in 11 languages and has sold 400,000 copies.

He has another book due out soon. He writes a weekly column for America On Line, a column for Golf Digest and he's learning how to write screenplays. Doesn't sound like a hip, off-the-cuff wiseacre, does it?

Prior to McCord, golf commentators sounded like surgeons whispering how they really felt about an underanesthetized patient while they cored the life out of him. Everything was so pompous, so serious, so life-altering.

It's McCord who sprayed the first seltzer into the pants of the four-putting pro.

``This is a boring game to watch; if you don't sit and try to entertain them, the audience is going to fall asleep - I'm going to fall asleep,'' McCord said. ``A long time ago, Pat Summerall told me to just be myself, because the audience catches on real quick to liars.''

Being himself was what led McCord to hot-wiring sound effects into the CBS computer a few years ago. Nothing too bad, maybe the sound of machine-gun fire when someone three-putted, or of a car wreck when someone made a snowman.

``Sometimes, you do things just so you can hear the boss say, `McCord, you idiot!' '' he said.

The man Augusta National was afraid would freshen the deadly regal air that suffocates its spring get-together and thus banned him for using the expression ``bikini wax'' when referring to their greens in 1994, bears no grudge.

``I get more free publicity from not being there,'' McCord said breezily. I get a paid vacation every year.''

If that's the trade-off, may the Michelob never become a major. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Gary McCord

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