Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 13

SPORTS Monday, June 22, 1992 Albuquerque Journal Sportsline 821-1800 Page 1, Section Game Site Dispels Major Myth First Big Tour jsfr.z" (: .) I yrfV I j. Hi -M- Jt t' '( t' Si I Weather or Not, It Was Heck Of A Tournament By Pete Herrera THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. Pebble Beach, charming and inviting for 48 hours, turned ugly and unforgiving at prime time of the U.S. Open. Winds along its seaside holes gusted to near 40 miles an hour Sunday, burying golf balls and most of the field in the cliffs and rough of one of the game's toughest tests.

The leaderboard, which bled red numbers signifying subpar through the first two rounds, was appropriately adorned in black Sunday. Only winner Tom Kite (72), runner-up Jeff Sluman (71), Nick Price (71), Britain's Colin Montgomerie (70) and Tray Tyner (70), who went out in the first twosome of the day, kept their games intact. Gil Morgan, who 4ed through the first three rounds and punished Pebble with rounds of 66 and 69 under hazy, clear skies Thursday and Friday, gave all the strokes back and then some with a nose-diving 81. Ironically, the 45-year-old Morgan's problems began just as it appeared he might become the oldest golfer in history to win the U.S. Open.

He ran down the pin with a 35-foot downhill birdie putt at the par-3 fifth hole to go three-under for the tournament and take a one-shot lead over Kite. But on the par-5 sixth, the first of the five holes that shadow Carmel Bay, Morgan's second shot got caught by the wind and ended up on the side of the cliff. He made double bogey and faded out of contention of bogeys at Nos. 7 and 9. Two-time Masters and British Open champion Nick Faldo began the day within two shots of the lead after a 68 on Saturday.

But his bid to win another major went south quickly with a front side 40 that added up to a 77 by day's end. Patience, not power, was the best club in the bag. Davis Love III, one of the game's longest hitters, shot 83. Scott Simpson, the U.S. Open winner in 1987 and the runner-up last year, shot 88 the worst of the day.

Ray Floyd and Craig Stadler shot 81, Paul Azinger and Mark Calcavecchia limped in with 80s and Seve Ballesteros 79. The wind turned the already rock-hard greens to concrete-like runways. "I'm a high-ball hitter and my little fade just didn't have a prayer today," said Jim Gallagher, who shot 83, 14 shots more than his 69 on Saturday. More bogejs than pars were recorded Sunday at both the par-4 ninth and 207-yard, par-3 17th. There were 28 bogeys and 27 pars at No.

9, and 32 bogeys, two doubles and 27 pars at No. 17. Also treacherous was the 107-yard, par-3 seventh, where the surf nearly reaches the well-trapped green. Englishman Ian Woos-nam, who complained during the week that THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tom Kite played a sound round of golf in difficult weather Sunday to capture his first U.S. Open title.

The winds swirled off the Pacific at Pebble Beach. Win Is Open THE ASSOCIATED PRESS England's Colin Montgomerie chips out of a trap. gained in 21 seasons of PGA Tour activity. He started the final round a single stroke behind Morgan and caught him with a long birdie putt on the first hole. With the other contenders dropping back in windblown disarrary a 4-putt double bogey by Mark Brooks here, a pair of doubles by Morgan there the wide-open race quickly narrowed.

Kite was not immune to the difficulties and the demands: At one. early point it appeared he was destined only for another disappointment. On the fourth hole he got his second in a bunker, about 25 feet from the flag. But his sand shot caught a slope and ran some 40 feet beyond the cup. He three-putted for double bogey and was back to 2 under par and in a five-way tie for the lead.

But Kite saved par from a bunker on the fifth, dropping a 12-15 foot putt, then ran in a 30-footer for birdie on the sixth. He missed the green in deep rough on the seventh but chipped in from 45-50 feet. It was a birdie and he was back to four under and in control. He got through the next two without damage, then holed a 40-footer on the 12th, and came out of deep rough to 4 feet for birdie on the 14th. That put Kite five under par and four ahead of Sluman with four to play.

At that point, his emotions became the enemy. "It's especially difficult in a tournament like this," he said. "With a little bit of a lead, in the U.S. Open, it's easy to start choking up out there, not with the pressure but with your emotions." Dodgers Muff Game Again; Streak at 10 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HOUSTON Everywhere the Dodgers look there are awful numbers staring back. The Dodgers lost their 10th consecutive game Sunday, matching the club record since moving to Los Angeles in 1958, as Butch Henry and Doug Jones combined on a seven-hitter in Houston's 2-0 victory.

The last-place Dodgers, who have lost 14 of their last 18 games, also dropped 10 straight in August 1961. The franchise record for consecutive losses is 16, set by the 1944 Brooklyn Dodgers. Manager Tom Lasorda tried to wake up the slumbering offense by taking over the third-base coaching duties. But only one Dodger made it to third in the game. "I'm going to stay there another day or so to see if I could change things around," Lasorda said.

"But anyway you look at it, it's tough to accept. This is just unbelievable to me that we can't score runs." Los Angeles scored only one run during the 30 innings of the Astros' three-game sweep, none in the final 24 innings. The Dodgers are 0-9 on their current road trip, scoring only 17 runs. "You give up two runs in a ballgame you're supposed to win," Lasorda said. "A pitcher who gives up two runs is supposed to be a hell of a pitcher.

But the pitcher's have got no margin for error." Maybe that's because the Dodgers are making so many miscues, In 64 games, the Dodgers have made 62 errors. Shortstop Jose Offerman already has 15. "We're just not hitting at all, it's our offense, we're trying to make it happen but it's not happening," Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros said. "The way we've lost is not comprable to anything I've been through. It's not something you can comprehend." Henry (2-6) won for the first time since May 25.

i THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. Tom Kite answered all the questions. The veteran golfer from Austin, Texas, beat some of the most difficult conditions major-tournament golf has seen and won the U.S. Open championship Sunday. On a day when Ray Floyd shot 81, defending champion Payne Stewart took 83, and Gil Morgan, the leader through the first three rounds, had an 81, Kite's cross-handed putting and touch around the greens produced a round of par 72 and a two-stroke victory over Jeff Sluman.

"I can't imagine a better feeling than this in golf," Kite said. "People have told me that winning majors is a little bit different, and it is." With that triumph, achieved in 35 mph winds howling in from the Pacific, Kite, 42, put an end to two decades of the unanswerable question, asked over and over: "Why haven't you won a major?" The winds kicked up white caps on Carmel Bay and turned the picturesque splendor of Pebble Beach into a torture chamber for golf's greatest players. "The hardest conditions I've ever played in," said Sluman, the former PGA champ who finished second and, with Kite, was one of the few able to handle the conditions. "The greens were turning blue out there," Kite said. "Man, they were scary.

They were treacherous." He had some help in the effort that gave him a 285 total, 3 under par. He got some breaks. But he was due. The ball that had bounced so wrong for him so many times in the past bounced right this time. Some long putts fell, from 20 feet and from 30 feet.

He chipped in, turning bogey into birdie. Shots straying into the rough found playable lies. "It's so important," Kite said. "It means so much. You keep, saying you're playing great and you're happy with everything and I was happy.

"But there's no substitute for winning." The 5-foot-7 Sluman was the only other man in the field able to break par for 72 holes. A great 9-iron shot on the final hole gave him an 18-inch putt for the birdie that finished off a 71 and a 287 total, one under. Colin Montgomerie, whose father is the secretary of the Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland, was next at par 288 after a closing 70. It was another three strokes back to England's Nick Faldo and Nick Price of Zimbabwe, tied for fourth at 291. Price got his 71 in the house before the winds reached peak strength.

Faldo shot 77 in the worst of it. The group at 292 included Jay Don Blake, Bob Gilder, Billy Andreade, Mike Hulbert, Tom Lehman, Joey Sindelar and Ian Woos-nam of Wales. Kite's 17th and most important victory was worth $275,000 from the total purse of $1.5 million and pushed his season's earnings to $783,966. His career earnings now stand at $7,439,440, a million and a half more than anyone else. And, in the windy terrors of the final 18 holes, it took all the skill and guile Kite had THE ASSOCIATED PRESS from Cleveland to Colorado Springs.

This was the pitcher's playground, on the high, gorge-filled mound or at shortstop, where the splotchy zoysia grass met the clumpy, red clay infield. His friend charted his pitches from the dugout while making his own pitch: trying to talk his way into the game as a pinch-hitter or late-inning defensive replacement. But mostly, he was left to analyze what the numbers meant, if anything, position the fielders and steal the signs. He hoarded the bubble gum, planted the pranks and collected the anecdotes. Like the time the pitcher missed his warmups because he'd dozed off in the MORE: See GROWING UP on PAGE C5 1 up two yards short of going into the ocean.

"I had no idea what to do," he said. Faldo also took a shot at the U.S. Golf Association for the condition of the greens. "If they want greens like this, I'm going to take up topless darts, I think," Faldo said. Asked if that meant throwing them or catching, he added, "Either would be easier.

Easier to catch them in your teeth today." "It was a matter of survival," Sluman said. Former New Mexico Lobo Brad Bryant shot a final round 73 and finished in a tie for 23rd. He picked up a check for $13,906. Though he finished only two shots behind Morgan, Bryant wasn't satisifed with his performance. "I should have been a contender," he said.

Rod Nichols has been dropped down V. An Arm, Hope, Patience Keep Nichols Going I the hole was too short to be a legitimate test for the pros, made bogey. And with the wind blowing directly into the tee box, 5-and 6-iron tee shots were common. Even the balls that found the green didn't stay. "I hit a 6-iron, but it didn't make any difference," Gallagher said.

"You could stand on it (green) and drop it and it wasn't going to stay." Sluman, who got up and down from the rough for par on No. 7, said the sand traps surrounding the hole looked more inviting than the green. "You almost don't want to hit the shot, but you can't just walk over to the eighth tee," Sluman said. "And the hole is so short you're afraid to look foolish." Faldo pulled out a 5-iron, changed his mind and went to a 6-iron. His shot ended What Nichols needs to do now is work on leaving the Sky Sox again for the greener pastures of, Cleveland? "They claimed I was inconsistent," said Nichols.

"I guess so. But nobody throws shutouts every inning. I got caught in a numbers game." Nichols' major league totals don't indicate the real problem. Before this season, he had a decent 4.34 ERA in 294V3 innings as an Indian. His strikeout-to-walk ratio (152-83) wasn't bad, either.

What the numbers did prove was that the Indians' offense didn't do a lot to back him up. Take a look at part of his 1991 season: Through a series of rain outs and off days that fell on Nichols' pitching dates, he didn't get his first start of the season until May 14 nearly a month after the season started. He suffered his first loss of the year that day, allowing just two earned runs in 8V3 innings. MORE: See NICHOLS' on PAGE C5 Diamonds Are EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press sports writer Arnie Stapleton and righthander pitcher Rod Nichols, who has spent eight years in the Cleveland organization, grew up together in Albuquerque. They caught up with each other recently at Arlington Stadium, three weeks before Nichols was optioned from Cleveland to Colorado Springs.

By Arnie Stapleton THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARLINGTON, Texas They grew up together, the pitcher and his pal. They were born on the same night 27 years ago, and they spent tbtnr summers chasing after autographs and foul balls at By Barbara Chavez JOURNAL STAFF WRITER Rod Nichols isn't into gambling, but don't deal him all the aces and expect him not to play. Nichols, a professional pitcher with the Cleveland Indians' organization, took a loaded-gun of an arm and rode his talent to the top. Problem is, he's had to do it more than once out of necessity. Nichols, a 1982 graduate of Highland High School and a three-year letterman at the University of New Mexico, has been up with Cleveland's major league team five times since 1988.

But for each time up the ladder, there's been a knock down to the minor leagues. Now those once lucky aces are showing up less frequently. For Nichols, lately anyway, life on the professional baseball level has been more like a lonely game of solitaire. Nichols, who pitched 16 games in relief for the Indians before being sent down to the minors again on May 26, joins his Class AAA Colorado Springs Sky Sox today when they begin a four-game series with the Albuquerque Dukes at the Sports Stadium. Nichols will start tonight for Sky Sox facing the Dukes' Dan Opperman.

The 27-year-old right-hander, once a batboy for the Dukes, last pitched Tuesday. "I'm just happy to be starting someplace," said Nichols from his hotel room in Phoenix recently. He has been a long reliever for the Indians most of this season, although he was penciled in early as the No. 5 man in the starting rotation. "My attitude has been great, really," said Nichols.

"The thing is, nobody ever likes being sent down to the minors. But if you have to go someplace, this isn't too bad. I enjoy playing for (Sky Sox manager) Charlie Manuel. We have some veterans on the team, and I bet they all have a healthy, dose of respect for Charlie and the (way he's put this ceam together." This Pair's Oldest Friends the same minor league ballpark. The pitcher started out as a batboy for the Albuquerque Dukes, where, for two seasons, he got inside tips from players like Ivan DeJesus and Dave Stewart.

His friend kept score on makeshift scorecards on nights he snuck into the stadium. For day games, he snuck transistor radios to school, where they tuned out the teachers and tuned in the broadcasts. They went to the same high school, made the same friends, attended the same dances and fancied the same dreams. They told the girls they were brothers, and some believed them. They were good students, but baseball was their real professor, and te diamond was their schism..