By Garry Smits
Florida Times-Union sports writer
Morris News Service

PONTE VEDRA BEACH - This Kiddie Corps domination of the PGA Tour stops right here, right now, doesn't it?

In the past three tournaments, there have been three first-time winners. Two of them were Tour rookies - Honda Classic winner Tim Herron and Freeport-McDermott Classic winner Scott McCarron - and the veteran of the group, Bay Hill Invitational champion Paul Goydos, has been on Tour only four years.

But this is The Players Championship, with a field stacked with 45 of the top 50 players in the Sony rankings, playing on the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass stadium course, which has brought the best of them to their knees.

A superstar, someone like Norman, Price, Faldo, Pavin or Mickelson, should by all rights muscle the young ones aside and assume the rightful spot as the winner Sunday, and with it the winner's check for $630,000 out of a total purse of $3.5 million.

Or so the smart money says.

The smart money has been getting short-changed lately. As 1994 Players champion Greg Norman said, another first-time winner in The Players shouldn't be greeted with any surprise.

``I don't see any reason why it couldn't happen again,'' said Norman, the leading moneywinner in Players Championship and PGA Tour history. ``I think it's great for the game to see that happening. When you get someone winning for the first time, it gives encouragement for all the other rookies who haven't won. So when the second guy wins, more encouragement is thrown out. So when the third guy wins, I wouldn't be surprised to see a rookie coming on because they know it's not the quality of their play; it's the quality of their belief.''

``It's like the guy who broke the four-minute mile one year,'' said defending Players champion Lee Janzen. ``Thirty other people did it the next year, and 300 people did it the next year. People see somebody else doing it from their position, and they suddenly open their eyes and see that they can do it, too.''

And Ponte Vedra Beach's David Duval, one of the more talented younger players on Tour, confidently said the possibility is as strong for a first-time winner here as in any other tournament.

``People who act surprised that three guys have won for the first time in the last three tournaments are people who don't know much about professional golf,'' said Duval, who shattered the Tour's record for rookie money winnings last year but is still seeking his first victory. ``If they knew these guys like we do, it wouldn't be surprising at all. There's talent from top to bottom out here.''

There is one key reason cited for the recent string of firsttime winners (which also happened in three successive weeks late last year, but one of those was 18-year veteran Brad Bryant winning at the Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic): experiencing competitive golf on a high level at an earlier age.

The Nike Tour, which evolved from earlier operations such as the TPS Series, the Tournament Players Association and the Hogan Tour, is proving to be more of a breeding ground for the big show - six former Nike Tour players won on the PGA Tour last year, including John Daly and Rookie of the Year Woody Austin.

Also, Herron, McCarron and Goydos are veterans of the Nike Tour, as was Jim Furyk, who has won his first two PGA Tour events in the past six months, and Duval.

Providing even more experience has been the Hooters Tour (McCarron played there just two years ago) and international tours, in which more and more Americans are competing. Herron, for instance, played on the Australian Tour, Daly played in South Africa, and Austin played in Japan.

``I think there are lot more opportunities to play four rounds of tournament golf, with all of the environment of a Tour event,'' said Blaine McCallister, a five-time winner on Tour. ``They play with caddies, against other good players, have to make cuts, so at least they get an idea of what it's like out here more than a college tournament would give them.''

``There is not as much of a gap between the Nike Tour, tours around the world and our Tour as there used to be,'' said Corey Pavin. ``I'm not going to discount a player Ăthis week´ who hasn't won anything.''

But, veteran players also agree that it would be more difficult for a first-time winner to surface this week and history bears that out: No one has won for the first time at The Players; seven of the past 10 champions have won majors; and two of the other three, Mark McCumber and Davis Love III, have won at least 10 tournaments.

``It is more difficult here,'' said Pavin. ``You have a harder golf course and more pressure. There are a lot of things that happen here that are different at other events, similar to a major-type feeling, and that is difficult to win. It is more difficult to win tournaments like that.''