Pavin Knows His Place Smallish Golf Star Pursues Pga Title At Course He Loves
He is small, almost small enough to be mistaken for a jockey. But at this week’s PGA Championship Corey Pavin is unmistakably the horse for the course.
Riviera Country Club has been known as Hogan’s Alley since Ben Hogan won three times over the track in 1947-48, two Los Angeles Opens and the 1948 U.S. Open. But by week’s end it might gain a new nickname: Pavin’s Place.
Pavin will try to duplicate Hogan’s rare triple this week at the posh club, a hilly enclave nestled among celebrity mansions in Pacific Palisades, Calif., just west of Hollywood on the northern rim of the Santa Monica Canyon.
“I just love the place,” Pavin said. “As a shotmaker, the course fits my strengths. You have to shape and work the ball there. It’s a good thinker’s golf course.”
Pavin has won the last two Nissan Los Angeles Opens at Riviera. In 1994, Pavin outdueled Fred Couples in the final round, 68-71, good for a two-shot win. He also shot a 64 that week. This past February, the former UCLA player shot a 66, two 67s and a 68 en route to a 16-under par, threestroke victory over Kenny Perry and Jay Don Blake. At the time, Pavin called it “one of my best tournaments ever on tour.”
Since then, Pavin, 35, listed as 5-foot-9 in the tour’s media guide but closer to 5-foot-7, has gone on to have a career year. He won the U.S. Open at ultra-tough Shinnecock Hills in June, his first major. He has already cracked $1 million in earnings for the first time, with $1,049,313 in 18 events. And he has clinched a place on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
Pavin’s win at Shinnecock, where he was the only player to match par, struck a chord with the golfing public. He’s not big and he’s not long, but he was tough enough to get the job done. The defining moment was his 228-yard approach to the 72nd hole, where he lashed a 4-wood within five feet of the cup. A fairway wood approach to a par-4. Now there’s something the average golfer could relate to.
Pavin, who converted from Judaism to Christianity the week before the 1991 U.S. Open, knelt in prayer after running up the fairway to see where the shot landed.
“I play within the limitations I have physically and try never to force things,” Pavin said. “Obviously, I’m not the longest hitter in the world, but I certainly make up for it with shotmaking and intelligent play out there.”
Even without winning the U.S. Open, Pavin would have been this week’s pre-tournament favorite. But having shed the “best player who’s never won a major” tag at Shinnecock should prove to be a tremendous burden lifted from Pavin’s 150-pound frame.
“I would think it would be helpful to have won the U.S. Open going into the PGA,” said Pavin, who tied for eighth at the British Open, in contention until he bogeyed four of his first eight holes in the final round. “There won’t be as much pressure on myself from within me and from the media. It has to help. Any time you have won a major championship, it makes it a lot easier to win the second one.”
Winning twice in the same year on the same course is a rarity. It was last accomplished by Jack Nicklaus at Pebble Beach in 1972, where he won the U.S. Open and the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. Nicklaus is also the last to have won the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship in the same year, 1980.
Pavin has local knowledge working in his favor. He grew up in Southern California, in Oxnard, and he played many Los Angeles courses while he attended UCLA in the early 1980s.
UCLA golfers were sometimes allowed to play Riviera after 2 p.m., and Pavin often took advantage.
“People think I played there all the time, or I grew up on the course, but that’s not the case,” Pavin said. “A lot of times, there were so many people on the course, we could never finish. We’d have to quit because of darkness.”
Still, Pavin learned to master the intricacies of the wiry Kikuyu grass and the subtleties of architect George Thomas Jr.’s infamous bunkers.
“It’s a very clear course to play,” Pavin said. “Every shot you hit there is framed so well, the tee shots by the trees and the approach shots with the way the bunkers are set.”
Pavin isn’t the only multiple Riviera winner in this week’s field. Fred Couples has won two of the last six L.A. Opens, in 1990 and 1992, besides his runner-up finish to Pavin in 1994. Couples, who skipped the British Open because of his ailing back, should be a threat if healthy.
Tom Watson is a two-time Riviera winner, but those wins came in 1980 and 1982. Watson, beset by putting problems, has not won a tournament since 1987, a full-field event since 1984, nor a major since 1983.
Lanny Wadkins has also won two L.A. Opens at Riviera, but his game has gone south since being named the 1995 U.S. Ryder Cup captain. Wadkins’ main concern this week will be finalizing his team for the September matches against Europe at Oak Hill CC in Rochester, N.Y.
Wadkins will watch players on the bubble scramble for spots in the final week of qualifying and then he will announce his two captain’s picks to complete the team next Monday.
British Open winner John Daly probably needs to qualify on points, because Wadkins has seemed reluctant to pick him. Daly, who has spent the last two weeks playing European events, is currently 16th and he probably needs a top-five finish to have a chance to crack the top 10.
In gearing up for golf’s biennial exercise in nationalism, Americans have the opportunity to score an early moral victory. After last year’s unprecedented major sweep by foreign-born players, American golfers have returned with a vengeance.
After wins by Ben Crenshaw in the Masters, Pavin and Daly, Americans can sweep the majors for the first time since 1982, when Craig Stadler (Masters), Watson (U.S., British Opens) and Raymond Floyd (PGA) accounted for the four titles.