This Week

March 25-31

PGA
The Players Championship, TPC at Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Of the top 50 in the world, only Mark McNulty, Brian Watts and
Bill Glasson aren't entered

LPGA
Nabisco Dinah Shore, Mission Hills Country Club, Rancho Mirage,
Calif.
This year's purse is up $100,000 to $1 million, but it's still
the smallest for a women's major

Senior
Southwestern Bell Dominion, Dominion Country Club, San Antonio
Watch for Raymond Floyd, who has finished sixth or better in
four of five Senior starts

PGA Tour
YOU'LL HARDLY SEE GRASS AT SAWGRASS

The defending Players Championship champ, Steve Elkington, is
allergic to grass but not to Sawgrass. Perhaps that's because
the Stadium Course, with its 18 water hazards, seems to feature
more surf than turf. The 17th hole, surrounded by water, offers
a respite for sod-fearing men like Elkington but also presents
the possibility of Sunday-afternoon carnage. This week Sawgrass
serves as the backdrop for the Players, which has grown into a
mini-major. Many of the Tour's top cats will then take a week
off to prepare for the Masters. Whoever wins at Sawgrass will
leave Florida with a sobering thought: Nobody has won the
Players and the Masters in the same year.
NBC, SATURDAY, 2 PM; SUNDAY, 3 PM

LPGA
IT'S FINAH TO TAKE A DIP AT THE DINAH

Here's the rare tournament at which everybody wants to land in
the water on the last hole. In the LPGA's splashiest tradition,
Dinah Shore champions leap into the pond beside the 18th green
to celebrate winning the season's first major. Dinah herself
swam with winner Amy Alcott in 1991, Shore-ing up a precedent
set by Alcott in '88. Last year Betsy King took the plunge
(above), then donned a bathrobe to pose for pictures with the
trophy. "If that's the price you pay to win," King says, "I'll
do it every year." Her victory came courtesy of Kelly Robbins,
whose bogey-bogey-double-bogey plunge had come earlier on the
back nine. This week, lifeguards should watch for Robbins as
well as Karrie Webb, '93 champ Helen Alfredsson, '96 runner-up
Annika Sorenstam and Dinah mite Alison Nicholas, the
five-foot-tall U.S. Open champion.
ABC, SATURDAY, 4:30 PM; SUNDAY, 4 PM

Senior Tour
LEAVE THE LOCAL DRIVING TO ALBUS

Don't be surprised if San Antonio turns into another 'Bus stop
on the Senior tour. Jim Albus won at Dominion in 1994 and '95.
He won this year's GTE Classic and finished 10th two weeks ago
at the Toshiba Classic. In the absence of Gil Morgan and Hale
Irwin, Albus might have the rest of the field in his rearview by
Sunday.
GOLF CHANNEL, SAT. 6 PM; SUN., 6:30 PM

COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK [Betsy King in water]