He Couldn't Hope for More in Desert

He Couldn’t Hope for More in Desert

By THOMAS BONK

Jan. 19, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PALM DESERT — Here’s how to win a golf tournament, Fred Couples style:

You start the day three shots behind. You are two shots behind with five holes to play. One of your drives hits a golf cart, bounces in the right direction and you wind up with a birdie when the ball probably should have rolled all the way to the interstate instead.

There’s more. You don’t catch up until the 90th hole of the 90-hole tournament, then you win on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff when your second shot bounces against the grandstand, you get a free drop, chip to four feet and make a routine birdie.

Add it all up and there’s only one question: How in the world did he win the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic?

“I don’t know if it’s luck, if it’s fate, if it’s good golf,” said Couples, who thought about it for a second or two before he went on.

“I feel lucky.”

He probably should. On the last day of the first full-field tournament of the year, Couples shot a six-under 66 Sunday at Bermuda Dunes and edged Bruce Lietzke on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to claim his first victory in nearly two years.

Lietzke, who closed with a 69, birdied only one of the last 11 holes. He could do no better than par both times he played No. 18, in regulation and in the playoff. He didn’t get the ball close enough when he had his chances, missing a 12-footer the first time and a 14-footer that would have kept the playoff going.

Afterward, Lietzke found something positive in his defeat.

“I love to see good people win, so I am kind of happy he won,” Lietzke said. “But I’m very disappointed that I lost.”

And so it went for Couples, who hadn’t played since October. His dad died during Thanksgiving, his arthritic back hurt (but only when he moved) and he was uncertain about his golf.

Couples has won 13 times and earned nearly $9.3 million, so he’s no stranger to success or higher tax brackets.

But rounds of 64-70-66-66-66 meant a winner’s totals: 28-under-par 332 and $414,000, the second-biggest payday of Couples’ 17-year career.

Last year, Tom Couples’ illness meant that his son would cut back drastically on his schedule. Fred did it gladly, without hesitation. Golf didn’t mean as much as it had before.

“You know, I don’t speak of golf last year,” he said. “You lose your father, I don’t believe you can win any tournament and let that speak for itself. So you know, golf-wise, it wasn’t a big deal to me how I played last year. This year, it’s a huge deal. I have a lot to look forward to. I think about my dad as anyone would, but I can’t really even begin to say this [victory] has any good feeling about what happened [last year]. It hasn’t.”

What might have helped was the presence of his girlfriend, Thais Bren, in his gallery. She’s also a winner, after a year-long bout with cancer.

Andrew Magee was in it until the last hole and just missed getting an 18-footer to drop for a birdie that would have forced a three-way playoff. Magee, who finished with a two-under 70, couldn’t find a single birdie anywhere on the last nine holes and it cost him.

David Duval, who had a 68, and Steve Jones, who shot 69, tied for fourth at 25-under 335. Stewart Cink and Mark O’Meara were four strokes back at 24-under 336.

Meanwhile, there was Couples. He birdied the first hole, but gave it back when he three-putted from 40 feet for a bogey at No. 3.

“I basically thought I was done,” Couples said.

He wasn’t. He birdied No. 6 with a 10-footer, then made birdies at No. 8, when he knocked the ball to two feet, and No. 9, when he bounced his drive off the golf cart of NBC analyst Roger Maltbie.

The ball kicked back into the rough, but it left Couples with an easy nine-iron to the green. He stopped the ball 10 feet from the hole, then made the putt for birdie to stay within two shots at the turn.

When he birdied No. 14, lofting a sand wedge over a tree to five feet from the hole and then making the putt, Couples had closed to within one shot.

“Toward the end,” he said, “I kept saying ‘OK, you need a birdie,’ and I guess, you know, I ended up with one more birdie than Bruce.”