COMBATANTS HOCH, FAXON AND LOVE ARE THROWN TOGETHER IN DENVER WORLD TOUR REVISITED LONG LOOK AT SHORTS

GROUP THERAPY

Brad Faxon, Davis Love III and Scott Hoch have been exchanging
fire ever since July's British Open, when Love, and particularly
Faxon, ripped into Hoch for staying home. Hoch, the best U.S.
player (fifth on the PGA Tour money list) to skip the major, in
favor of the Deposit Guaranty Classic, retorted with a hail of
insults for Faxon. The players seemed unwilling to head for a
neutral corner when, by the luck of the draw, they were grouped
together for the first two rounds of last week's Sprint
International. Tense does not begin to describe the atmosphere.

"I'm still pissed," Hoch said after last Friday's round. "Brad
did a lot of harm to the Tour by what he said [last month]. What
makes it scary is that this is a guy helping to shape policy."
(Faxon was a member of the Tour's policy board from 1993 to '95.
Love is one of the four players currently on the 10-man board.)
"Too many guys out here are narrow-minded. They think only about
what's good for them, not for the whole Tour."

Hoch also does not believe the grouping was an accident. "The
Tour says it was done by computer," he says, "but somebody had
to program the computer."

The Tour maintains its innocence. "I swear, it was a fluke,"
says tournament director Ben Nelson, who explained that the
pairings are randomly spit out of the Tour's computer in Ponte
Vedra Beach, Fla. "Human hands had nothing to do with this, I
assure you."

WORLD TOUR II

Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, we
hear that the Shark's old idea, the World tour, is still
lurking. Last week Joe Collet, Seve Ballesteros's former
manager, and Collet's associate Tom McInerney worked the Castle
Pines locker room trying to drum up support for their
International Golf tour, which they hope to get off the ground
by 2000. Collet and McInerney have a business plan, the
investment capital and, they say, the ear of the U.S., European,
Australian, Japanese and South African tours. Their idea is to
take an existing tournament like the International and reduce
the field from 144 to the best 75 or 80 players in the world
while raising the purse to $3.5 million.

That sounds good on paper, but Collet and McInerney have a lot
of selling to do. Nonetheless, they're making points by taking
their time rather than springing the deal on the players the way
Greg Norman did almost two years ago.

"I know Greg hopes I succeed where he was let down," Collet
says. "This would be a joint venture in which all the players
would have equity. The tournaments are there; it's just a matter
of organizing them. We're building one brick at a time."

SLUMMING IT

Andrew Magee had missed six straight cuts before the
International, so he did what many touring pros do when they're
in a slump. He fired his caddie.

At Castle Pines, Magee hired one of the local loopers,
25-year-old Eric Meller, who had been on the bag of the winner
of the Castle Pines club championship earlier this summer.
Meller worked his magic with Magee, too, who finished 14th and
earned $26,600.

Magee liked Meller so much that he's taking him on the road for
four tournaments, which is not to say that the caddie is overly
impressed. "I've been to places like Cairo and Jerusalem, and
he's telling me the Quad Cities and Milwaukee are exciting,"
says Meller. "I've already been to the Ritz Carlton in Naples
(Fla.), so I might as well see a Motel 6."

BLUE SNUB

A black-tie dinner honoring LPGA commissioners past and present
was held on Sunday at the Country Club of the North in Dayton.
For the first time Ray Volpe, John Laupheimer, Charlie Mechem
and Jim Ritts were together in the same room. Bill Blue, who
followed Laupheimer and preceded Mechem in the office, wasn't
invited.

THE SHORT GAME

The issue of whether Tour caddies should be allowed to wear
shorts will be on the agenda when the Tour's policy board meets
in October. The Tour is considering a caddie uniform that would
include blue, white or khaki shorts....Ben Crenshaw will join
the CBS broadcast crew for 10 tournaments next year....U.S.
captain Arnold Palmer will take any controversy out of his two
wild-card picks for the Presidents Cup by also making the 11th
and 12th players on the points list automatic selections. That
means Tom Watson is out.... Tiger Woods had to change his travel
plans when he learned that the start of the U.S. Amateur was
moved up a day to accommodate television. The defending champion
was not happy, but as one USGA official put it, the information
was on the entry sheet and "311 other players got it right."

COLOR PHOTO: BILL SALLAZ To a still-hot Hoch, his pairing at Castle Pines seemed like an International conspiracy. [Scott Hoch]

TWO COLOR PHOTOS: JOHN BIEVER (2) [Jack Nicklaus; Tiger Woods]

TIGER VS. THE BEAR

A poster listing Jack Nicklaus's accomplishments in golf used to
hang on the wall in Tiger Woods's bedroom in Cypress, Calif.
Woods says the poster helped him measure his own progress. This
week, as the 20-year-old Woods attempts to win an unprecedented
third consecutive U.S. Amateur, at Pumpkin Ridge near Portland,
we thought it would be interesting to see how his amateur career
compares with Nicklaus's. Listed are the two players'
significant amateur victories and their finishes in the majors.
Nicklaus left Ohio State--without graduating--after capping his
amateur career by winning the 1961 NCAA. A year later, at 22, he
won his first major (the U.S. Open), then added the Masters and
the PGA when he was 23. He won the final leg of the Grand Slam,
the British Open, at 26.

Age
14
Insurance Youth [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
15
U.S. Junior [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
16
Ohio Open [Jack Nicklaus]

[Age]
U.S. Junior [Tiger Woods]
Insurance Youth [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
17
U.S. Jaycees [Jack Nicklaus]
U.S. Junior [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
18
Trans-Mississippi [Jack Nicklaus]
U.S. Open (41) [Jack Nicklaus]

U.S. Amateur [Tiger Woods]
Pacific Northwest [Tiger Woods]
Southern Calif. [Tiger Woods]
Western [Tiger Woods]
Tucker Invitational[Tiger Woods]
Pate Invitational [Tiger Woods]
World Team [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
19
U.S. Amateur [Jack Nicklaus]
North-South [Jack Nicklaus]
Trans-Mississippi [Jack Nicklaus]
Masters (cut) [Jack Nicklaus]
U.S. Open (cut) [Jack Nicklaus]

U.S. Amateur [Tiger Woods]
Sunnehanna [Tiger Woods]
Masters (41) [Tiger Woods]
U.S. Open (WD) [Tiger Woods]
British Open (68) [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
20
World Team [Jack Nicklaus]
Masters (13) [Jack Nicklaus]
U.S. Open (2) [Jack Nicklaus]

NCAA [Tiger Woods]
Pac-10 [Tiger Woods]
Masters (cut) [Tiger Woods]
Western [Tiger Woods]
U.S. Open (82) [Tiger Woods]
British Open (22) [Tiger Woods]

[Age]
21
U.S. Amateur [Jack Nicklaus]
Western [Jack Nicklaus]
NCAA [Jack Nicklaus]
Big Ten [Jack Nicklaus]
Masters (7) [Jack Nicklaus]
U.S. Open (4) [Jack Nicklaus]