GOLF ROUNDUP : Price Wins After Replay Goes in Kite’s Disfavor

Nick Price’s first victory in eight years on the American pro golf tour was upstaged Sunday by the initial application of golf’s instant-replay rule.

“Eight years is a long time to be patient,” Price said after his closing 68 and 270 total made him a winner in this country for the first time since the 1983 World Series of Golf.

He won it by one shot over Craig Stadler with a three-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole at the TPC at Las Colinas at Irving, Tex., and routine pars on the final two holes.

But a controversy centering on Tom Kite and, for the first time, the use of instant-replay television equipment in the application of the rules was far from routine, however.

“I don’t think television has any business doing what they’re doing,” Kite said after blowing a two-stroke lead and finishing five shots behind the winner. “Putting an official in a trailer is a cop-out.”

Kite, the third-round leader, was two strokes off the pace when he hit his tee shot into the water on the 11th hole.

He and playing partner Phil Blackmar judged the ball crossed a point of land jutting into the lake before entering the water, and Kite took a penalty drop on that point of land.

The PGA Tour rules official assigned to monitor television--in this instance George Boutell--questioned whether the ball had crossed that point of land and contacted Mike Shea, the Tour’s Tournament Director and the man in charge of the event.

Shea reached Kite before he played his next shot, advised him of the situation and suggested he should return to the tee to play the next shot. Kite asked to play a provisional ball from the site of his drop, did so and then returned to play another ball from the tee.

He eventually made bogey-five on the ball dropped on the point of land, and double-bogey six on the ball played from the tee.

After a review of the tape, Shea ruled the tee shot had not crossed the point of land and thus, the ball replayed from the tee was the ball in play. The six stood and Kite was out of contention.

“It’s all new to us, too; brand new,” Shea said of the use of television replay, instituted after Paul Azinger was disqualified at the Doral Open after a day-late call from a television viewer.

Kite bogeyed the next hole and finished with a 75 and a 275 total.

Stadler, whose last American victory came in this event seven years ago, posted his closing 67 and 271 total about half an hour before Price and the other contenders reached the closing holes.

Chi Chi Rodriguez shot a 66, the low round of the tournament, to defend his Las Vegas Senior Classic title, his third victory of the year.

Rodriguez finished with a 54-hole total of 204, three strokes ahead of Walter Zembriski. Rodriguez’s mark of 12 under was just the score he predicted Saturday would win the $450,000 event.

“I played this round in my room last night for an hour,” said Rodriguez, who earned $67,500. “I pictured every shot going my way.”