Notebook

Onstage with McCord were former PGA winner Al Geiberger, whose bogey on the final hole created the playoff, rookie Allen Doyle and McCord's good buddy John Jacobs, another free spirit. On the first playoff hole, a par-5, Jacobs chipped in for an eagle that eliminated Doyle and Geiberger. McCord answered, making a testy 18-foot putt to tie.

"I've played with Gary enough to know he wouldn't make that putt for a $180 Nassau," said Jacobs, "so I was sure he wouldn't make it for $180,000."

McCord and Jacobs each made two pars before television got into the act. When Jacobs drove into the trees on the fourth extra hole, Andy North came over to Jacobs and his ball. "This," said North, " is exactly the shot John Jacobs faces," the camera showing the problem. Jacobs quipped that he hadn't faced such a quandary in some time, and North in turn offered his assistance and a pat on the back, to guffaws from the gallery.

Jacobs scrambled to a par. McCord, left with a four-footer for the win, missed. Finally, on the fifth extra hole, the par-416th, McCord provided the punch line by holing a short putt for a birdie and the win.

"I don't know what happened this week," he said afterward. " Tiger Woods must have been channeling my body. I've been spending a lot of time with David Duval lately, and he's told me that whatever happens, you've just got to hang around and make a nuisance of yourself and sooner or later you'll make some birdies."
—Walter Bingham

Webb Sights
Aussie Eyes Dinah Shore

When Karrie Webb won last month's Australian Ladies Masters, her 26-under-par total broke the LPGA record by three strokes. Her 10-shot margin of victory was the biggest since Liselotte Neumann won by 11 at the '96 Tournament of Champions.

Yet for all of Webb's dominance, the only two-time winner on the tour this season is still 0 for the big ones heading into next week's Nabisco Dinah Shore, the LPGA's first major of '99. Among active players she has the most victories (11) without winning a major, and as such is the anti-Nanci Bowen (one career win, the '95 Dinah), the successor to Ayako Okamoto (17 wins, no majors) and on track to break the record of Jane Blalock (27 wins, no majors). Or so you might think—if you forget that Webb is only 24.

"Winning a major is a career goal for me," Webb said last week at the Welch's/Circle K Championship at Tucson, where she tied for eighth. "If I don't do it this year, there's always the next."

Webb certainly looks ready. She's cut 1.69 putts per round off her '98 average after a tip from putting poo-bah Scotty Cameron in November. His suggestion: a cross-handed grip, which Webb fine-tuned during a fruitful off-season. "For the first time, I worked on my game," she says. "Usually I go home [to Australia] and spend the winter visiting relatives and don't even touch a club.