On Homeward Nine, Woods Still a Runaway Leader

Welcome to accounting class. We’re seven months, three majors and 31 tournaments into the PGA Tour semester and the ledgers are bursting with birdies, bogeys and other adventures.

So far, the only real surprises have been that Tiger Woods doesn’t win every tournament he plays (even if it seems that way) and

that Justin Leonard is talented enough to win the British Open and methodical enough to vacuum in straight lines.

Oh, and Jesper Parnevik. Just because he wears Popsicle purple pants, a shirt five sizes too small and looks like someone who just showed up to paint your house, doesn’t mean the guy can’t play golf.

This seems like a good time to take stock of the situation, to identify the big winners, the big losers and the biggest surprises . . . so far, anyway.

TOP OF THE CHARTS AND STILL CLIMBING

1. Woods: With four wins, a Masters title, seven top 10s, a Ryder Cup berth and now only a restaurant tip away from setting a single-season prize money record, it has been a very good year for swoosh-wearing golf-ball bashers who favor red shirts on Sundays.

2. Ernie Els: Successive victories at the U.S. Open and the Buick Classic made an average year into a great one. With $1.05 million in only 15 events, he hasn’t finished out of the top 10 in two months.

3. Leonard: Mr. Consistency. Not only did he win at Royal Troon and not only did he win twice in six weeks, but Leonard has shot below par in 25 of his last 30 rounds. In 16 tournaments before the Kemper Open, he had one top-10 finish. In the six since, he has four top-five finishes--two of them victories.

4. Jim Furyk: How do 11 top-10 finishes in 21 tournaments sound? How does $1.05 million sound? The same way, probably. He hasn’t won, but Furyk has been the most consistent player since May, beginning at the Byron Nelson Classic, where he finished tied for fifth. He hasn’t been any worse than eighth in his seven tournaments since.

5. Phil Mickelson: Yes, we’re still waiting for that first major, especially since an even younger contemporary, Leonard, already has his. But Mickelson has won twice and is again nearing $1 million in prize money (he’s at $870,765).

FALL ARRIVES EARLY (AND IT’S NOT AUTUMN)

1. Corey Pavin: Unfortunately, about the only way this Ryder Cup veteran is going to see this year’s event in Spain is if he buys a ticket. It has been a totally forgettable year--16 tournaments, six missed cuts, one top-10 finish (and that was in January), No. 144 on the money list. The good news is, there’s always next year.

2. Jim Gallagher Jr.: A two-time winner in 1995, he has gone from No. 8 on the money list to No. 76 last year to No. 180 this year. It has been a miserable experience. In 20 tournaments, he has missed 11 cuts and hasn’t finished higher than a tie for 17th.

3. Mark Brooks: He won three times last year, including the PGA Championship, but it isn’t a very happy Mr. Brooks who will try to defend his title next week at Winged Foot. Brooks has missed eight cuts and his lone top 10 was a tie for seventh at the Players Championship in March.

4. Steve Stricker: Last year, he won nearly $1.4 million and was labeled a rising superstar. This year, he has won, oh, roughly $1.3 million less and he’s probably starting to wonder if the two victories last year were a mirage. Let’s hope he avoids straining relationships with his caddie, mainly because it’s his wife.

5. John Daly: It already has been a very long year for Daly, who walked off the course at the U.S. Open and was disqualified for the fifth time in his career. He had three rounds under par at Hartford in his latest return, tied for 21st and raised new hopes again.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! (FORGET-THEM-NOTS)

1. Robert Damron: In the rain and the cold at PGA Tour qualifying school last fall, this 24-year-old from Orlando, Fla., tied for 16th and earned his card. He has made the most of it. Damron is No. 38 on the money list with $431,518 and has four top-10 finishes, including successive ties for third at the Buick Classic and the FedEx St. Jude Classic.

2. Parnevik: All right, he’s not exactly a surprise as a player any more, not with eight top 10s and more than $1 million in earnings. The real surprise, why he’s listed here, is that Parnevik hasn’t won a tournament--he has finished second five times this year.

3. Stewart Cink: In his second full year on the PGA Tour, the 6-foot-4 24-year-old from Atlanta has made $506,483 and also won his first event. That was at Hartford, where he threw everything at them but the kitchen . . . well, you know.

4. Phil Blackmar: He’s going to be 40 next month and Blackmar sent everyone a little reminder he still was around when he won at Houston in May. It was the first victory in nine years for the former bank employee who has deposited $490,858 in 20 tournaments this year.

5. Billy Ray Brown: One guess where ol’ Billy Ray is from. It has been either hit or miss for the 34-year-old Texan, who had to go back to qualifying school to retain his card for 1997. Brown has missed nine cuts and made eight--but one of them was at the Deposit Guaranty, which he just happened to win.

RATINGS GAME

CBS has high hopes for its PGA Championship telecasts. Judging by what has happened at the first three majors, CBS doesn’t have a thing to worry about.

Ratings for the Masters on CBS were up 47% over 1996, ratings for the U.S. Open on NBC were up 30% over 1996, and ratings for the British Open on ABC were up 41% over 1996.

For what it’s worth, the three networks’ ratings averages for the PGA Tour had declined 36% from 1987 to 1996. In the years to come, this period may become known as BT, or Before Tiger.

MONEY NEWS

What is Tiger worth?

Well, P.O.V. magazine, which claims to track “careers, cash and living large,” pegs Woods’ worth at $576 million and estimates he will earn $2.3 billion by the end of his career.

To arrive at that figure, the magazine used a future earnings formula developed with a J.P. Morgan derivatives expert.

And if he does arrives at that figure, Woods may found R.I.C.H. magazine.

SENIORS: HALE FELLOW

Hale Irwin is treating the Senior PGA Tour like his own private bank account. First on the money list with $1,489,561, Irwin is averaging $99,304 per tournament this year and closing in on Jim Colbert’s single-season earnings record of $1,627.890.

Irwin has played 50 events as a senior and won 10, six this year. He also has finished in the top three in 24 events.

LPGA: VETERANS’ DAY

All right, the winners of the first three majors on the PGA Tour are all in their 20s, but the winners of the four majors on the LPGA Tour come from the other side of the calendar--they’re all 35 or older.

Betsy King, 41, won the Nabisco Dinah Shore; Chris Johnson, 39, won the McDonald’s LPGA Championship; Alison Nicholas, 35, won the U.S. Open; Colleen Walker, 40, won the du Maurier Classic.

HERE’S BARCLAY, AGAIN

The Barclay Howard spotlight continues. Howard, the 44-year-old from Scotland who was the low amateur at the British Open and talked openly about his bouts with alcoholism, is on the team from Great Britain and Ireland that will play the United States in the Walker Cup this weekend.

The matches will be played at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., and give the United States a chance to rebound. Great Britain and Ireland won, 14-10, in Wales in 1995. But the United States holds a 30-4-1 advantage.

Howard is the oldest player on his team, but U.S. players Buddy Marucci Jr. and John Harris are 45. Jason Gore of NCAA champion Pepperdine is on the team.

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

James Oh, 15, of Lakewood shot a two-under 70 for a three-round 211 total to win the 37th boys’ Junior State Amateur championship this week at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale.

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The St. Jude Shoot Out at Sherwood will be held Aug. 18 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks. The event benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Details: (800) 227-6737. . . . The seventh Select Office Solutions Foundation tournament will be held Aug. 18 at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale. The event benefits children’s charities in Los Angeles County and Orange County. . . . The sixth Mike Garrett Golf Classic will be held Aug. 22 at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena. The event benefits the USC Mexican American Alumni Assn. Details: (213) 740-4735.