Gentle Ben Roughs Up The College Crowd

College golf is meat for a Hollywood gossip column. Everybody loves and hates everybody else, complains about courses, coaches and All-America selections and, in general, breaks all records for non-stop backbiting. Rona Barrett could have reported last week's NCAA tournament at the Tucson National Golf Club by dropping teasers like: Should B.B. and D.W. be invited to the same party? Will Lanny Wadkins of Wake Forest junk it all and turn pro before an NCAA official tees off on his dentures? Can Gentle (I'm gonna slam this dude) Ben Crenshaw of the University of Texas find love and eternal happiness with an NCAA trophy? Or is it only a step on his way from Austin to professional immortality?

Beyond such tingly items is the more important question of why the golfing public ignores the NCAA tournament and fails to recognize it for what it really is: a marvelous pastiche of confusion that winds its way through comic foul-ups, verbal harangues and plain chaos to produce probably the finest field and the best performances in amateur golf.

To doubters, it should be pointed out that Jim Simons, who a few days earlier had won instant fame by leading the U.S. Open after three rounds and fighting Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus to the 72nd hole before sagging and finishing fifth, won a scowl from his college coach the first day of the NCAAs by finishing fifth on the Wake Forest team. His 76 was surpassed by 140 other collegians in the 226-man field. Though Simons was obviously sapped both mentally and physically from his courageous effort in the Open, his performance at Tucson was grist for opposition coaches. "Jimmy's a good boy," said portly Buster Bishop of the University of Florida, "but we have a lot out here like him. Pick 10 other amateurs to play against the 10 best college kids here. No contest."

"Amateurs?" said University of Houston Coach Dave Williams, who has to disagree with Bishop even when he agrees with him. "Give me six of these guys and I'll take on any six pros in the world."

Williams may have been exaggerating, but this year's NCAA field could bear comparison with the name-spangled group that played in the 1966 tournament at Stanford, where Bob Murphy beat Bob Dickson, Ron Cerrudo and Vinnie Giles, among others. At Tucson were Florida's Mike Killian and Andy North, Houston's John Mills and Corker De-Loach, the Texas Walker Cupper Tom Kite Jr., Howard Twitty of Arizona State, Ray Leach of Brigham Young and Dave Glenz of Oregon, in addition to Crenshaw and Wake Forest's Wadkins, Simons and Eddie Pearce. As for the two coaches, Bishop and Williams, they had been at odds since Florida upset Houston for the NCAA title in 1968. Williams, whose teams have won 12 of the last 16 national titles, likes to quote the Bible and gives "90% credit to the Lord." Bishop calls Williams a "carnival barker." Their happy feud is put into excellent perspective by one of their players: "They both want to win so bad they're practically the same guy. Except one is a huge tubby and the other is a little roach."

Williams and Bishop are of the same mind when it comes to their conception of what a "contribution" to college golf is. Wake Forest, they feel, does not make its rightful contribution because the Deacons do not enter enough college tournaments. All that Wake Forest seems to be well represented in are such things as the U.S. Amateur, the Walker Cup, the British Amateur and the U.S. Open; jerkwater tournaments like that. Every year at the NCAAs Wake Forest is both favored and hated because everybody is aware of all those Arnold Palmer wind-up toys enrolled at the Winston-Salem school (Palmer played college golf there, and the university offers an Arnold Palmer scholarship).

But Wake Forest always loses the NCAA. Two years ago the Deacons gave away a five-shot lead on the final day, and last year a two-shot margin when Wadkins blew his own five-stroke individual lead and lost to John Mahaffey of Houston. Despite having Wadkins (the reigning U.S. Amateur champion), Simons (a finalist a few weeks ago in the British Amateur) and Pearce (the North and South Amateur winner), Wake Forest died again this time.

Tucson National's long, sprawling 7,300-yard par-72 layout did not favor the precise game most of the Deacons play nor did the 105� temperature sit well. Only Pearce, raised in Florida, was at home on a course where every fairway resembled an SST landing strip and the nearest rough was in Guadalajara. Just the same, Wake Forest Coach Jesse Haddock was optimistic. "Our attitude is good and, let's face it, we do have the best team," he said. But other coaches pointed to Florida and Houston, and even to Texas, whose hopes rode on Kite and freshman star Crenshaw.

"This place is made for a masher who can putt," said Williams. "That's Crenshaw."

Most of the unwieldy field spent the first round asking Simons about the U.S. Open ("What did Big Jack say to you on 18?") and being awed by Crenshaw's strong 67. "I was two under par," said Dave Haberle of Minnesota, his playing partner, "but I had more fun just watching him. He hit it so good he should have made 60." But Houston's Mills—a refugee from the state of Maine—shot an even better 65 and led the Cougars to a four-stroke team lead.