Miller Is Leader, but Sheehan Just One Stroke Back

By SHAV GLICK

April 7, 1985 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The scoreboard says that Alice Miller, 28, a graduate of Arizona State, is leading the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament with 18 holes to go today at the Mission Hills Country Club.

But if you listen to Miller, or most of the other women playing in the Ladies Professional Golf Assn.’s $400,000 tournament, the one to beat is Patty Sheehan.

Sheehan shot a 71 Saturday, and her 54-hole total of 209 is one shot back of Miller, who shot a 70 Saturday for a 208. Also at 209 is Judy Clark, who shared the second-round lead with Muffin Spencer-Devlin before firing a par 72. Spencer-Devlin faltered to a 77--214.

At 212, four shots back of Miller but still in contention for the $55,000 first prize, are Lauri Peterson, another Arizona State product, who had a third-round 69, Jan Stephenson and Denise Strebig.

Stephenson, who needs only to win Dinah’s tournament to complete the LPGA’s Big Four--the U.S. Open, Dinah Shore, LPGA and Canada’s du Maurier--and Strebig, a 24-year-old from San Bernardino and USC, both had 73s.

The million-dollar bonus offered to any player who wins the Dinah Shore back-to-back apparently is safe for another year. Defending champion Juli Inkster is at five-over-par 219, 11 shots back of the leader.

Sheehan, who won a $500,000 bonus last year for winning successive tournaments, had an impressive round Saturday except for her putting. The former ski champion from Los Gatos, Calif., missed three birdie putts of six feet or less in the final five holes to keep from sharing or taking the lead.

“Patty was good to us,” Miller said. “Her putter was bucking, and she missed some putts she normally makes. I don’t expect it to keep happening.”

Nor does anyone else. Sheehan was a runaway winner of the J&B; Gold Putter Putt-Off championship last year at Las Vegas, not losing a match in the double-elimination championship.

Miller, who has won three LPGA events but has never before been in contention for a major championship, said she felt a 68 today would win it for her . . . unless Sheehan gets hot.

“When Patty gets hot, she is unbeatable,” said Miller, almost in awe of her chief foe. “If she makes one birdie, she’s going to make three. When Patty has a bad day, sort of like today, she’s one under (par). When the rest of us have a bad day, we’re three over.”

Whereas Sheehan as having trouble on putts,, Miller came through with one on the final hole to enable her to break out of a three-way tie for the lead. Miller rolled home a breaking, downhill putt of at least 30 feet on the final hole.

“All I was thinking was saving par,” Miller said. “The way I had played the hole, I would have been quite satisfied with a 5 (on the 487-yard, par-5 18th hole). I hit my tee shot into a fairway bunker, hit my second shot in the rough and had to cut a 7-iron out of the thick grass to the center of the (island) green with all that water looking me in the face. The putt was the longest I’d had all week. As far as I’m concerned, it looked like a hundred feet. Maybe it’s a good omen for me tomorrow.”

Sheehan, for her part in the drama, headed for the putting green to straighten out her stroke.

“I hit 13 greens, which is about average for me, and I had 30 putts,” she said, “but when I needed one or two late in the day, I pulled them left of the hole.

“I think one problem with my play, and with most of the other girls, was having to wait on every hole. There was no way to establish any rhythm. I made a couple of birdies early, which would normally get me going. But all the waiting killed my momentum.”

She missed from six feet at No. 16 after hitting a 6-iron on the 164-yard hole, missed from four feet after a 9-iron second shot on No. 15, and missed another six-footer on No. 18 after lofting a sand wedge onto the island green.

“There were a lot of possibilities, but I’m not down,” Sheehan said. “I haven’t felt good the last couple of days, and maybe a good night’s sleep tonight will help. I just hope we don’t have to stand around like a marshal, the way we did today.”

Clark, who will be paired with Miller and Sheehan today, said her biggest problem will be not getting in a head-to-head contest with either opponent.

“When you’re playing with someone who can shoot low numbers, you have a tendency to try and shoot with them, but you can’t control what they do,” Clark said. “You have to control your own game and not worry about the other guy.”

Clark has not won since joining the LPGA tour in 1978, but she has been a model of consistency this year. In her last five tournaments she has finished in the top 10 four times.

“As long as I keep hitting the ball solid and posting low numbers, my day (to win) will come,” she said, “but there are so many good players out here you can never be sure who will win. I know I’m nervous. This is a lot of pressure for me. On the first tee today I felt like my legs were going to go, but when I made a birdie on the second hole it settled me down.”

That was Clark’s only birdie of a rather uneventful round. She dropped back to even par with a bogey at No. 17, a 170-yard par 3, when she bunkered her tee shot and missed a short putt for par.

Stephenson, who won the GNA tournament two weeks ago in Glendale, had one bad hole--No. 9, where she needed two shots to get out of a trap and took a double-bogey.

For Strebig, a third-year player whose best finish is a third last year at Portland, Saturday was a new experience.

“It was my first time on national TV in the next-to-the-last threesome, and in the hunt,” said the former Aquinas High and USC player. “It was pretty exciting for me. I think the most nervous moment was when I stood over that last putt and knew the TV camera was on me.”

Strebig had wedged her approach shot over the water within four feet of the pin, and she sank the putt for her only birdie of the day.