The Michigan Daily-Thursday, August 2, 1979-Page 11 SPORTS OF THE DAILY 'BIRMIN looking for scores pla ds yesterd $350,000 Associatio Everybo Ri no( fro ARLING fielder Mi play by th despite un to the New Detroit threatened 3 victory o on ground belongingt BUT A' Commissic nesday tha Texas, ev players Ne still up in t noon. Oscar G eighthhom New York ning. As origin to go to the including1 were to sta until the et the three p this was Bowie Kuh cleared wa Gamblev cleared wai the Yankee Oakland greens. IGHAM - Golfers gleefully Woehrle, was expecting Oakland Hills rward to slow greens and fast to yield its first sub-par winning score yed their final practice roun- in the last six major championships to lay prior to the start of the be held on the 7,014-yard course. Professional Golfer's THE DEFENDING champion in the n tournament. 72-hole chase for the $60,000 first prize dy but the greenskeeper, Ted was John Mahaffey, who won at Oak- mont, Pa., last year by beating Tom Watson and Jerry Pate in a playoff. v r' However, the rich tournament has another defending champion - Gary Player, who won the PGA when it was t 10 llast held at Oakland Hills in 1972. Daily rain has softened the huge, hilly greens to the point where the 150 con- S K u h n testants feel they can go for the pin almost without penalty. Players have TON, Texas (AP) - Out- found downhill practice puttts falling ckey Rivers was cleared for short of the cup instead of ending up in Rivers as cbunkerso off the green. he Texas Rangers yesterday bunkers "I'M AT THE mercy of Mother certainty about who would go Nature," said Woere, who has gained York Yankees in return. Ntr,'si ohlwohsgie YorYanesiryeAnurn a national reoutation as the keeper of Manager Sparky Anderson Oakland Hills' greens. "I'm very Sto seek a forfeit of Texas' 11- OkadHls res Imvr I e ks i of T e s ' 11- pleased with the condition of the course er his Tigers Tuesday night, - except for the rain. s the Rangers used a player"The rough will be adequate," he SPOKESMAN for Baseball said. "It's not necessary to have light- oner Bowie Kuhn said Wed- ning fast greens at Oakland Hills, t Rivers is eligible to play for because of the severe contour. 'en though the player or "I personally don't think they'll w York will get in return was break par," Woehrle said. "By Sunday, he air late Wednesday after- if the weather is decent, the greens will be fast enough and the rough will be ramble, a .335 hitter with tall." -UPI e runs, appeared headed for Tension surround bout as late as yesterday mor- NEW YORK - Protesters called the heavywight title fight scheduled for ally announced, Rivers was South Africa October 20 a "phony apar- Yankees for four players - theid sport scheme," Wednesday, while three minor leaguers who promoter Bob Arum questioned the iy in the Texas farm system motives of the protesters. nd of the season - because "They're really not afraid that the players were identified. But fight is in South Africa," said Arum. vetoed by Commissioner "They are afraid Coetzee will win the n because the three had not fight. That's racism." ivers. Gerrie Coetzee, a white South was the only Ranger who had African, will fight John Tate, a black vers who was acceptable to American, for the WBA heavyweight a. title in Pretoria, South Africa. -AP slower for PGA THERE HE IS, the hottest item to hit the professional golf circuit since Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson has yet to win a major tournament this year. But Watson has one shot left-the PGA tourney which begins today at Birmingham's Oakland Hills Country Club. Time Further Out BIRMINGHAM "The Lord intended thisfor a golf course" Those were the words of world-famous golf ar- chitect Donald Ross when he first surveyed the Miller farmland on Maple Road back in 1916. He then went out and promptly began work for two businessmen and a group of prospective members on what is now one of the toughest and most supreme tests of golf in the world. Sorry, Augusta National; sorry, Pebble Beach, sorry Royal and Ancient, you can all take a back seat to the unyielding 'monster' - the storied Oakland Hills Country Club. When Gary Player won the last major cham- pionship held here - the 1972 PGA - he called this "the toughest golf course I have ever seen." His winning score of one over par, 281, would seem to back that statement up quite nicely. Remember, the PGA annually has the strongest field of all the tour events because that is who it is played for, the best professional golfers in the world, only. No amateurs, no celebrities and no ex-presidents allowed. In fact, there have been six major tournaments held here, including the 1979 PGA which begins today and runs through Sunday, and nobody has ever broken par in any of those previous four U.S. Opens and one PGA dating back to 1924. And Nobody escapes 'Monster's' wrath By Bob Emory you're talking about such golfing greats as Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, just to name a few of the legends that have trekked across the famous south course (Oakland Hills now has two 18-hole courses ) without making more birdies than bogies. The reasons for this are obvious. Everything that can be .reasonably and strategically em- ployed in making a course as true a test of golf as is possible has been done with Oakland Hills. It is long (7,014 yds.), very tight with traps surroun- ding almost every fairway and green, doglegs left and doglegs right and greens that are not only as fast as the speeding traffic on Maple, but also resemble burial grounds for oversized elephants. The nightmare continues. After Robert Trent Jones finished remodeling the course for the 1951 U.S. Open, he called it "the greatest of modern day golf." Essentially, what he did was create two small target areas on each hole. One on the fairway for the tee shot and one on the green for the approach shot. That way, as Jones said, "No mistakes can be made without a just penalty." It was in that '51 Open that Oakland Ifills received its nickname. After his initial round, Hogan, who was seeking his third Open title, looked at the 76 on his scorecard and declared. "This course is a monster." He then went out for the final round and shot a course-record 67 for the title and lore has it that Hogan claims he dropped the monster to its knees. That famous line has never been documented, but Hogan did say this later on: "My 67finish was the greatest round of championship golf I ever played." Enough said. Oakland Hills had a name for it- self. Regardless of all the lore and history attached to this course, it will always have a special place in my heart. I grew up about a half-mile down the road just off Maple, and so many times did my friends and I cut through a small hole in the fence and play eight to ten holes late in the evening. We also did a few other things after the sun went down on this course. Like borrow a golf cart for a mid- night beer ride, rearrange flagsticks, jump in the pond on the 16th and various other childish pranks. But never once did we damage the course. Mostly, we just snuck in a few holes in the waning dusk trying to improve our games and being able to lay claim to the fact that we played on the same grounds as did Hogan and Nicklaus and Snead and all the others. But I shant continue about all that... I know the Lord never intended this course to be trampled on by someone with my duck hook swing. Quote of the day - Jack Nicklaus, commen- ting on some of 4he other players making predic- tions that he's going to win: "They sure haven't been doing much of that lately, but they're probably right,"