Pebble Beach

Don Pooley, who had the lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour last year, surprised himself Friday with an eight-under-par 64 on the Pebble Beach Golf Links and took the lead with a 132 after two rounds of the $200,000 Spalding Invitational tournament now under way on three Monterey Peninsula courses. Tim Norris also shot a 64, which is two strokes over the course record at Pebble Beach, and was one stroke back in the non-tour golf event.

In 1968, Arnold Palmer became the first pro golfer to earn $1 million in career winnings. Beginning today, 13 players have a chance to become the first to make a million this year. What's the best way to look at this? "It's unreal," Chip Beck said. Then is this golf or banking? "I don't think many of the guys have cash registers in their eyes," Mark McCumber said.

Rocco Mediate came through the wind tunnel on the finishing holes of Cypress Point Saturday battered--but surprisingly happy. Mediate, who shared the 36-hole lead Friday in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with Payne Stewart and Bob Gilder, shot a one-over-par 73, but remains in contention despite three bogeys on his finishing holes.

Steve Ballard was ready to head home to Westlake Village after shooting 73-67--140 on Monday in U.S. Amateur Championship qualifying at Apple Valley Country Club. Not so fast, said caddie Steve Richman. "I didn't think 140 would be good enough," Ballard said. "I didn't feel I had a shot until they came up and said I was in a three-way playoff."

One day after he shot a 65 in a pro-am round but was disqualified for signing an incorrect score card, Curtis Strange shot a 64 Thursday at Pebble Beach and was very careful about what he signed. "I checked my score card today," Strange said. "I must have checked it 6 or 7 times." And Strange, who has said even more often that he really isn't thinking about becoming golf's first Mr. Million in yearly earnings, turned his spikes in that direction anyway.

Pat Duncan of Rancho Santa Fe, the three-time San Diego City Amateur champion, advanced Wednesday into today's quarterfinals of the 78th annual California Golf Assn. amateur championship tournament in Pebble Beach by ousting Pleasanton's Todd Fischer, 3 and 2, in the first round of match play, and Anaheim's Don Shevorski, 4 and 3, in the second. One San Diego golfer who did not make it past the first round was Phil Mickelson, the NCAA Division I champion, who lost in the first round to fellow San Diegan Jack Spradlin, 2 and 1. Spradlin, a former touring pro, then defeated San Francisco's Sandy McColl, 3 and 1, to reach the quarterfinals.

Those may as well have been dollar bills raining Sunday on Curtis Strange and Tom Kite, who could have covered themselves in cash and enjoyed golf's biggest payday--a $535,000 walk on the wet side at Pebble Beach. But they didn't. The PGA will have its first Million Dollar man today in a sudden-death playoff, which will be televised beginning at 9 a.m. on ESPN, and it will be either Kite or Strange.

Tiger Woods won't be playing, there's no prize money or corporate sponsorship and it won't be televised. This is definitely one golf tournament that's not on the PGA Tour. The caddies of St. Andrews, Scotland, the birthplace of golf, are preparing to play host to the caddies of Pebble Beach, who work at one of the most beautiful courses in the world.

Kathy Whitworth shot a five-under-par 67 to gain a share of the 54-hole lead at 205 in the $200,000 Spalding Invitational golf tournament Saturday. Former Masters champion George Archer and 1981 Canadian Open champion Peter Oosterhuis shared the lead with Whitworth at 10 under par for three days of play on three Monterey Penninsula golf courses. Archer shot a three-under-par 70 at Del Monte, and Oosterhuis had a 67 on the same course. Whitworth, a Ladies Professional Golf Assn.

The Monterey County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved an ambitious development plan for Pebble Beach that includes carving a new golf course out of the environmentally sensitive Del Monte Forest while preserving hundreds of other acres of forestland. Proposed by the Pebble Beach Co., whose principal owners include Clint Eastwood, the project faced strong resistance from environmental groups opposed to cutting down 17,000 Monterey pine trees for the new golf course.