Tall in Texas Yup, Corey Pavin is king of the Tour's Lone Star swing

Corey Pavin hails from California, lives in Florida and could
probably hide under a 10-gallon hat, but he must have the heart
of a Texan. As the chart below shows, since 1990 Pavin has been
king of the Texas three-step, the PGA Tour's annual visit to the
Lone Star state. Nobody in this decade has been better in the
Houston Open, the Byron Nelson and the Colonial than Pavin, who
is similar in size and temperament (if not recent results) to
the best golfing Texan of them all. "What Ben Hogan and I have
in common is imagination on the course," says Pavin, who has
pocketed 13% of his $8.2 million in career earnings on the Texas
swing.

Creativity and grace under pressure have been Pavin's keys to
the city of Fort Worth, Hogan's hometown. He has a win, two
seconds and two ninths at Fort Worth's Colonial Country Club. He
cemented his position as the best Tour player in Texas this
decade with $229,050 earned from three top 10 finishes at the
Nelson in nearby Irving.

Like Pavin, Fulton Allem proves that you needn't grow up in
spurs and a Stetson to go as low in Texas as the barometer in
tornado season. Allem, a South African, has won two of his three
Tour titles in Houston and Fort Worth. Two more outlanders,
Bruce Devlin of Australia and Roberto De Vicenzo of Argentina,
are the only men to achieve a career Texas Triple. But hold your
horses: A closer look at the Texas swing shows that many of its
stars are local boys after all. Mark Brooks, Ben Crenshaw,
Bruce Lietzke and Jeff Maggert grew up and went to college in
Texas, while South Africa's David Frost moved to Dallas in 1986.
"Being Texan is a state of mind," said the late Dave Marr, who
came from Houston and won the 1965 PGA Championship. "We all
have the same gunslinger attitude, and many of us grew up
admiring Ben Hogan. When he walked onto a course, it was like
there was a new sheriff in town."

COLOR PHOTO: JACQUELINE DUVOISIN [Corey Pavin holding trophy]

STARTS CUTS MADE Top 10s WINs EARNINGS

Corey Pavin 18 15 8 1 $812,174
Nick Price 18 15 5 2 776,932
Jeff Maggert 22 19 5 0 741,643
Payne Stewart 21 16 7 2 720,560
Fulton Allem 21 11 5 2 583,614
Mark Brooks 25 19 5 1 552,696
Bruce Lietzke 24 18 4 1 552,155
Scott Simpson 14 11 4 1 524,294
Ben Crenshaw 24 17 5 1 481,824
David Frost 20 13 2 1 434,869

Tour Tested

Does winning regular tour events help a player in the majors?
Not always. Here is the average victory total of the champions
of this decade's men's and women's majors going into the Grand
Slam events that they won.

Dinah Shore 13.2
LPGA 13.0
U.S. Women's Open 11.3
U.S. Open 7.8
PGA 6.3
Masters 6.1
British Open 4.8
du Maurier 2.9

Swing Shifts

How much do the top pros earn per swing? Here are the six
highest-paid swingers on the PGA Tour so far in 1998, as well as
the per-swing prices of four other notables.

STROKES $ PER STROKE
David Duval 2,856 $445.48
Tiger Woods 2,310 434.45
Justin Leonard 2,565 405.77
Fred Couples 2,183 398.47
Ernie Els 1,551 384.36
Mark O'Meara 2,392 356.80
Jack Nicklaus 719 160.81
Nick Faldo 2,036 48.77
Corey Pavin 1,955 12.58
Chip Beck 1,728 0.00

THE NUMBER

189.4
Net income, in millions of dollars, earned by the PGA Tour in
1997 on revenue totaling $359.4 million.