The Week May 11-17

Heads Up, It's Open Season

The game got an injection of fun in the person of Sergio Garcia,
and we all marveled at the skill and exuberance of El Nino.
Meanwhile, local U.S. Open qualifying got underway. This was
serious business. More intriguing still: The Women's Open is a
mere two weeks away. The heart of the season, Open season, is
upon us. Will Colin Montgomerie finally win one? Can Se Ri Pak
repeat? Get ready for sustained buzz.

PGA Tiger Woods's quadruple-bogey 7 on the 17th hole last
Saturday at the Byron Nelson Classic, won by Loren Roberts, was
his first quad since the '97 British Open.... Among nonwinners
in '99, Nelson runner-up Steve Pate leads in earnings with $1.33
million.... Davis Love III sat out the Nelson yet jumped ahead
of Woods to No. 2 in the World Ranking.

LPGA Meg Mallon beat Annika Sorenstam and Kris Tschetter by a
stroke in the last Sara Lee Classic, in Nashville, despite
Sorenstam's tour-record 61 in the first round.... Michelle
McGann, who tied for fourth, broke the tour's 36-hole record
with a 16-under 128.... DeDe Owens, past president of the
Teaching and Club Pro division, died on Sunday in the Chicago
suburb where she had been hospitalized following a heart attack.
She was 53.

SENIOR Seven players beat Hale Irwin's tournament-record score of
281 at the Las Vegas Senior Classic, where Vicente Fernandez shot
a 13-under 274 to beat Dave Eichelberger by two strokes.... With
the death of 97-year-old Gene Sarazen, Ken Milne, 96, of Palm
Beach Gardens, Fla., becomes the oldest member of the PGA of
America.

ALSO Montgomerie, who made the Benson & Hedges International
Open his first win of '99, leads the European tour career money
list with $13.1 million, which is $800,000 more than the PGA
Tour's leader, Greg Norman.... Ian Woosnam, who has played in 43
straight majors, has asked the USGA for an exemption into the
U.S. Open.... Joe, Jumbo and Jet Ozaki finished first, second
and third, respectively, in the Japan PGA.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY JULES ALEXANDER The Master An appearance by Sarazen, who died on May 13, was an Augusta tradition.

UP and Down

Sergio Garcia Tiger Woods
Jerry Higginbotham Mark O'Meara
Austin Nashville
Jack Nicklaus Lee Westwood
Monty Woosie