WORLD-BEATER BOB MCCOY HAS BECOME THE FIRST PERSON TO PLAY THE TOP 100 COURSES IN 100 DAYS

I will bet twenty thousand pounds, against anyone who wishes,
that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less.

--PHILEAS FOGG
Around the World in Eighty Days

The Phileas Fogg of golf, by contrast, limits his bets to $2
Nassaus. He travels not by steamship and hot-air balloon but by
commercial airline and an old black Cadillac. In fact, compared
with Jules Verne's intrepid Brit, Bob McCoy is something of a
slacker. He took 100 days to circle the globe from his home in
Springfield, N.J., finishing on Monday, but along the way he
accomplished a singular feat--he played the world's top 100
courses in just as many days.

"Some people think I'm nuts," said the 58-year-old McCoy, a
consultant and former Wall Street analyst, after his 50,000-mile
journey. Indeed, he is one of only five people to have completed
the Golf magazine World 100. He's the first person even to
attempt the 100 in 100, to have the chutzpah to put his faith in
oft-delayed airlines, capricious weather and his own health.
"One Japanese guy described it as a kamikaze trip," McCoy says
with pride.

On June 15, for example, after finishing a morning round at
Royal Portrush (site of the recent Senior British Open in
Portrush, Northern Ireland), McCoy drove the 50 miles to
Belfast, took the four-hour ferry across the Irish Sea to
Scotland, rented a car and arrived at Turnberry with just enough
time to complete his round before the sun set at 10:30 p.m. As a
postscript to this midsummer night's dream, he watched the final
round of the U.S. Open after retiring to his room at a Turnberry
hotel.

There were other highlights during McCoy's crusade, from his
eagle 2 at Royal Liverpool to his low round, a 74 at Black
Diamond Ranch in Lecanto, Fla., to simply playing Pebble Beach,
his favorite course. During one free afternoon in Australia,
McCoy came a fraction of an inch away from holing his tee shot
on a par-3 at Melbourne's Capital Club, a superexclusive layout
that has not yet cracked the World 100. Had he made a hole in
one, McCoy later learned, sirens would have sounded and he would
have won a million Australian dollars ($746,700) from an
adjacent casino.

Not that he needs the money. McCoy, who owns a small Canadian
island and has a building at Harvard named after him, concocted
the idea for his $35,000 adventure in 1988 while knocking off
the final courses in Japan for his lifetime World 100. When a
journalist there asked him what he would do for an encore, he
replied, without blinking, "I'll do them in 100 days." Now that
the voyage is complete, he confesses that there will be no
encores this time. "I might have created a monster," says McCoy,
who plans to write a book on the course architecture of the
World 100. "I know someone will want to do this in fewer than
100 days, so I set up some ground rules: You have to start from
your official place of residence, fly commercially, do all your
own driving and walk all 1,800 holes."

One unwitting steward at the TPC at Sawgrass, in Ponte Vedra
Beach, Fla., didn't understand the last rule and threatened to
throw McCoy off the course when he spied him walking and not
riding in a cart. Surprisingly, that was one of McCoy's few
close calls. No flights were missed and no lightning stopped
him, although he slogged through the same interminable British
showers that delayed Wimbledon last month.

What's more, McCoy's stamina was remarkable, even by the
standards of the fictitious Fogg from London. "People wondered
if I got tired, but every day I got up and played one of the
world's best courses with nice people," says McCoy, who had
played 105 rounds in 100 days by the time he left the 18th green
at Merion on Monday. "I don't know if it was adrenaline, but I
felt fine. I didn't want this thing to end."

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN F. GRIESHOP [Bob McCoy]

COLOR ILLUSTRATION: ILLUSTRATION BY VICTOR JUHASZ [Drawing of distorted map of world resembling golf course with flags showing locations of courses]

1 COLONIAL
Fort Worth, Ranked 56th

2 CASA DE CAMPO
La Romana, Dom. Rep., 20

3 SEMINOLE
N. Palm Beach, Fla., 19

4 LAKE NONA
Orlando, 95

5 WORLD WOODS
Brooksville, Fla., 66

6 BLACK DIAMOND
Lecanto, Fla., 78

7 TPC AT SAWGRASS
Ponte Vedra, Fla., 83

8 HARBOUR TOWN
Hilton Head, S.C., 45

9 LONG COVE
Hilton Head, S.C., 80

10 AUGUSTA NATIONAL
Augusta, 4

11 PINEHURST NO. 2
Pinehurst, N.C., 9

12 WADE HAMPTON
Cashiers, N.C., 77

13 HONORS COURSE
Ooletewah, Tenn., 57

14 SHOAL CREEK
Birmingham, 69

15 PEACH TREE
Atlanta, 75

16 OAK TREE
Edmond, Okla., 90

17 SOUTHERN HILLS
Tulsa, 42

18 PRAIRIE DUNES
Hutchinson, Kans., 25

19 CHERRY HILLS
Englewood, Colo., 52

20 CABO DEL SOL
Los Cabos, Mexico, 68

21 Riviera
Pacific Palisades, Calif., 27

22 LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles, 53

23 SHADOW CREEK
North Las Vegas, 49

24 PEBBLE BEACH
Pebble Beach, Calif., 3

25 CYPRESS POINT
Pebble Beach, Calif., 2

26 SPYGLASS HILL
Pebble Beach, Calif., 93

27 OLYMPIC
San Francisco, 30

28 SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco, 24

29 KAWANA
Shizuoka, Japan, 50

30 KASUMIGASEKI
Saitama, Japan, 70

31 NARUO
Inagawa, Japan, 87

32 HIRONO
Kobe, Japan, 40

33 PARAPARAUMU BEACH
Paraparaumu, N.Z., 71

34 NEW SOUTH WALES
La Perouse, Australia, 54

35 VICTORIA
Cheltenham, Australia, 91

36 COMMONWEALTH
Victoria, Australia, 97

37 KINGSTON HEATH
Cheltenham, Australia, 33

38 ROYAL MELBOURNE
Black Rock, Australia, 6

39 ROYAL ADELAIDE
Adelaide, Australia, 63

40 DURBAN
Durban, South Africa, 72

41 ROYAL TROON
Ayrshire, Scotland, 36

42 BALLYBUNION
County Kerry, Ireland, 12

43 LAHINCH
County Clare, Ireland, 73

44 PORTMARNOCK
Dublin, 38

45 ROYAL COUNTY DOWN
Newcastle, N. Ireland, 10

46 ROYAL PORTRUSH
Portrush, N. Ireland, 15

47 TURNBERRY
Turnberry, Scotland, 16

48 MUIRFIELD
East Lothian, Scotland, 8

49 ST. ANDREWS
St. Andrews, Scotland, 5

50 CARNOUSTIE
Carnoustie, Scotland, 21

51 CRUDEN BAY
Aberdeen, Scotland, 99

52 ROYAL DORNOCH
Dornoch, Scotland, 13

53 LOCH LOMOND
Luss, Scotland, 44

54 GANTON
Ganton, England, 67

55 ROYAL LYTHAM
St. Annes, England, 58

56 ROYAL BIRKDALE
Southport, England, 26

57 ROYAL LIVERPOOL,
Hoylake, England, 82

58 WOODHALL SPA
Lincolnshire, England, 29

59 SUNNINGDALE
Berkshire, England, 39

60 WENTWORTH
Surrey, England, 65

61 RYE
Deal, England, 94

62 ROYAL ST. GEORGES
Kent, England, 28

63 WALTON HEATH
Surrey, England, 79

64 SAN LORENZO
Vale do Lobo, Portugal, 100

65 VALDERRAMA
Sotogrande, Spain, 51

66 EL SALER
Valencia, Spain, 60

67 MORFONTAINE
Senlis, France, 61

68 BETHPAGE
Farmingdale, N.Y., 86

69 QUAKER RIDGE
Scarsdale, N.Y., 47

70 THE COUNTRY CLUB
Brookline, Mass., 35

71 ROYAL MONTREAL
Ile Bizard, Que., 92

72 NATIONAL OF CANADA
Woodbridge, Ont., 89

73 OAK HILL
Rochester, N.Y., 31

74 FIRESTONE
Akron, 96

75 CANTERBURY
Shaker Heights, Ohio, 84

76 OAKMONT
Oakmont, Pa., 17

77 CASCADES
Hot Springs, Va., 76

78 CAMARGO
Cincinnati, 43

79 SCIOTO
Columbus, Ohio, 48

80 MUIRFIELD VILLAGE
Dublin, Ohio, 32

81 THE GOLF CLUB
New Albany, Ohio, 34

82 DOUBLE EAGLE
Galena, Ohio, 74

83 INVERNESS
Palatine, Ohio, 52

84 OAKLAND HILLS
Birmingham, Mich., 23

85 CRYSTAL DOWNS
Frankfort, Mich., 14

86 MEDINAH
Medinah, Ill., 46

87 CHICAGO
Wheaton, Ill., 41

88 INTERLACHEN
Edina, Minn., 98

89 MAIDSTONE
East Hampton, N.Y., 55

90 NATIONAL
Southampton, N.Y., 22

91 SHINNECOCK HILLS
Southampton, N.Y., 7

92 GARDEN CITY
Garden City, N.Y., 64

93 YALE
New Haven, Conn., 88

94 FISHERS ISLAND
Fishers Island, N.Y., 59

95 WINGED FOOT (WEST)
Mamaroneck, N.Y., 18

96 WINGED FOOT (EAST)
Mamaroneck, N.Y., 85

97 PINE VALLEY
Pine Valley, N.J., 1

98 BALTUSROL
Springfield, N.J., 37

99 SOMERSET HILLS
Bernardsville, N.J., 81

100 MERION
Ardmore, Pa., 11