News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 69

NEWS-PRESS, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1987 3C IE BRIEF Field filling for Celebrity Classic at Vintage ON GOLF KfcTtlMF" VINCE SMITH Douglass takes command Dale Douglass fired a 3-under-par 69 Saturday to vault to a five-shot lead beading into the final round of the PGA Seniors Championship in Palm Beach Gardens. While second-round leader Chi Chi Rodriguez slipped to a 76 on the Champion course, Douglass pulled away from the other contenders with his three-day total of 7-under 209. Harold Hennlng and Bobby Nichols are tied for second at 2 1 4 after posting scores of 67 and 68, respectively, in the third round. Rodriguez, Bob Charles and defending champion Gary Player are deadlocked at 2 1 5. Douglass opened Saturday with four birdies on the first 10 holes.

(Scores, 2C) Norman ahead by 7 shots Greg Norman of Australia conquered the tricky par-73 Huntingdale course for the third-straight day with a 68 and opened a commandingseven-stroke lead after 54 courses in Southwest Florida is now open on Island Park Road in south Fort Myers. Terraverde Country Club, a nine-hole layout where par is 27, offers some of the most exciting par-3 holes to be found on any regulation course. The nine holes play at 1,260 yards from the blue tees and 1,015 from the whites. This is a tough little course with a lot of water and some long par-3s. Water comes into play on six of the nine holes.

Two of the holes are spectacular. The No. 1 handicap third hole is 195 yards from the blues and 155 from the whites. It requires a long iron or fairway wood into a green surrounded by trees, and the shot must carry a lake. The sixth hole measures out to 180 yards from the blues and 150 from the whites.

Water runs along the right side. A well-placed middle iron is a must to reach the green. The sporty little course was designed and built by Gordon Lewis and Bill Mad-dox. Open to the public, Terraverde's greens fees are $7 for nine holes and $2 for a pull cart. Memberships are open to the public and information can be obtained by calling 433-7733.

Patti Nowakowski is head pro. She has been a teaching professonal in St Louis, Michigan and Fort Myers Beach. Nowakowski is available for lessons, at $20 an hour. The new clubhouse features a snack bar and seating for 120 diners. The facility has a pool area with Jacuzzi, men's and women's locker rooms and a sauna.

The amateur field is close to half full, Morton said. Entry fee for amateur participants is $150, and sponsorships range up to $900. The $150 donation includes a box lunch, greens fees and cart long drive and putting contests, refreshments on the course and the awards banquet at the ornate Vintage clubhouse. Patty Berg, the Golf Hall of Fame member and resident of Cypress Lake in south Fort Myers, will give out awards at the dinner. Spectator admission is $5 and tickets are available at all NCNB offices, and also will be sold at the gate.

An "official spectator" package is being sold for $50 and entitles the buyer to entry into the gallery, the awards banquet, two free cocktails and tary greens fees for one round at Vintage, between May 1 and Oct. 1. The tournament format is an 18-hole, four-man scramble. Arnold Palmer, honorary national chairman of the March of Dimes, has donated a sand wedge to be awarded as a prize. An auction of sports memorabilia will be held after the awards banquet with Chuck Ross designated as "celebrity auctioneer." Among the items scheduled to be auctioned off are baseball bats and autographed prints of some famous golfers in action.

For more information on the tournament, call the March of Dimes office at 337-1127. One of the tidiest little par-3 golf For some 15 Kansas City Royals players and front-office personnel, the second annual March of Dimes Celebrity Golf Classic will mark their final tournament appearances in the Fort Myers area. The Kansas City team will be holding its final spring training in Fort Myers this spring. Next year, the Royals will be conditioning in Haines City. The Royals' roster is a hotbed of good golfing talent Pitchers Bud Black and Charlie Liebrandt are the best of the lot, but General Manager John Schuerholz is no slouch either when it comes to swinging a golf club.

With the Royals out after this year and the Texas Rangers moving into Charlotte County for their spring training, starting this season, new baseball faces will dot next year's March of Dimes tournament roster. "We've already talked to the Rangers, and it looks like they'll be playing in our tournament next year," said Lisa Morton, tournament coordinator. "If we have to, we'll try to make our tournament date coincide with the Rangers' free time." But this year's Celebrity Classic at Vintage Golf Country Club March 2 is moving ahead at full steam. Along with the Royals' personnel who will be appearing, other celebrities include Howard "Hopalong" Cassady, the former Heisman Trophy winner from Ohio State; Ara seghian, the ex-Notre Dame football coach; Earl Morrall, the former NFL quarterback; and Hoyt Wilhelm, the former pitching great. Last year the Celebrity Classic raised some $27,000 for the March of Dimes.

This year, under the new corporate sponsorship of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Morton is looking to raise even more money for the charity Cassady, who dazzled Midwest football fans as a Buckeye Ail-American in 1954-55, is co-chairman of this year's event "Hop lives in Tampa and he's been down here for several of our meetings," said Morton. "With the Yankees about ready to start spring training in Fort Lauderdale, he'll be trying to recruit some more Yankees to play in our tournament." Cassady is fitness coordinator for the Yanks and quite a golfer himself. Last year he won the celebrity long-driving contest with a poke of 250 yards. After graduating from Ohio State, he went on to play eight years of NFL football with the Detroit Lions. He first joined the Yankee organization in 1976.

Tournament Chairman Bob Fizer said he is expecting 108 amateurs and 36 celebrities to make up the tournament field. Bobby Nichols, the PGA Senior Tour player representing Vintage and Fiddlesticks, will be on hand for a golf clinic at noon. Nichols is honorary chairman of the Celebrity Classic. The tournament will go off with a 1 p.m. shotgun start.

holes of the $200,000 Australian Masters Golf Championship in Melbourne, Australia. Norman, golfs top money-winner last year and the defending British Open champion, carded five birdies. His 5- I 1 under-par third round gave him a 203 total, 16-under par. Norman, aiming to win Australia's richest tournament for the fourth time, left the rest of the field far back as he scored birdies at the fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth and 14th holes to increase his overnight lead of two shots. NORMAN IT No offer for Guidry The Baltimore Orioles did not make an offer Friday to free-agent pitcher Ron Guidry, proba bly further diminishing their chances of I Floyd's eagle on 18 grabs share of Williams lead getting the left-hander.

Orioles General Manager Hank Peters said he spoke with Reggie Ringuet, Guidry's agent, GOLF 1 tm 1 and told him he would talk to him later in the week. Peters said owner Edward Bennett Williams' "financial people" would study the Orioles' payroll before deciding whether to make an offer. Guidry was offered a two-year contract GUIDRY worth $1.65 million by the Yankees Jan. 8, but the offer has been withdrawn. he produced one of golf's greatest rarities a double eagle.

Edwards, 241 yards from the pin, hit a driver from a slightly uphill lie in the fairway on the 499-yard 18th hole, and watched the ball hit short of the green, bounce onto the putting surface and then disappear. "I couldn't really see it, but when everybody around the green went crazy, I figured it went in the hole," Edwards said. It did. It was a score of two on a par-5 hole, and the first double eagle on the tour since Mike Hulbert holed out a second shot at Pebble Beach in 1986. The dramatic shot finished off a 7- under-par 65 for Edwards and left him at 201 two shots back going into today's final round of the chase for a $90,000 first prize.

Edwards was tied with George Burns, Bobby Wadkins, Lon Hinkle, Lennie Clements and Bob Lohr. Lohr and Clements each had a 66, Wadkins 67 and Burns and Hinkle matched 70s. The group at 202, three off the pace, included Craig Stadler, Hal Sutton, Buddy Gardner and Mark McCumber. Gardner had a 65, Sutton 66 and McCumber 67. Stadler, who was tied for the second-round lead, had a 71.

Watson was in a large group at 203, which, despite his disclaimer, lifted him from six behind to four off the pace. Scores 2C TV: Channels 8, 20, 4 p.m. By The Associated Press LA JOLLA, Calif. Ray Floyd's last-hole eagle lifted him into a share of the third-round lead Saturday with J.C. Snead in a day of remarkable play at the $500,000 Andy Williams Open golf tournament.

Floyd's eagle finished off a 6-under-par 66. He was tied at 199 with Snead, who also shot 66 on the South course at Torrey Pines. Their 17-under-par totals for three rounds matched the best subpar total for 54 holes on the PGA Tour last year. Their accomplishments, however, were only two of a variety of scoring exploits. "I shoot 66 and I lost ground," Tom Watson said.

It was an overstatement, but only a mild one. "There's a lot of low scores. If you want an explanation, there's no wind, the pins are relatively easy, and the greens are softer because of the (overnight) rains, and you can fly the ball right at the pin." That's what David Edwards did. And DEE Connors, Edberg advance Jimmy Connors used his experience to beat Sweden's young Mikael Pernf ors 6-7 (6-8), 7-5, 6-3 Saturday to earn a spot opposite top- seeded Stefan Edberg in the U.S. Indoor I 1 From page 1C Clyde tennis championship finals in Memphis, Tenn.

The 34-year-old Connors defeated Pernfors, 23, with a steady base line game and a flashy assortment of shots at the net during the two-hour, 47-minute match. Edberg was extended to a second-set tie-breaker by Brad Gilbert, but was in control with his serve-and- volley game during much of his 6-4, 7-6 CONNORS (8-6) victory. Connors, ranked eighth in the worln, will be after his eighth U.S. Indoor singles title when he meets second-ranked Edberg. "I'm on a roll," Connors said.

"I'm hitting the ball now as well as I've ever hit the ball. I'm moving and working and concentrating. I took a layoff and I've come back ready to play." (TV: ESPN, 1 p.m.) remembered about a player who had so little statistical impact on the game? "He was responsible for awakening the interest in baseball in the area," said Burton Hawkins, the Rangers director of public relations at the time and now the club's official scorer. "He was the first big thing the Rangers had." Poised under pressure The Rangers realized that when they made Clyde the nation's No. 1 pick in the amateur draft in June of 1973.

Then they made made sure the world knew David Clyde's name and when he was going to pitch. Hawkins remembers the media crush the week before the first game and he also remembers the way Clyde dealt with the attention. "He handled the media like a 32-year-old veteran, saying all the right things," said Hawkins. "He was probably churning inside, but on the outside he was incredible for a kid so young." DAVID High School Professional CLYDE Westchester H.S. Texas Rangers (Houston) 1973-75 1970-73 Cleveland Indians (4-year totals) 1978-79 Win-Losses 53-13 18-33 ERA 0.65 4.63 Innings pitched 475 416 Hits allowed 160 457 Strikeouts 842 228 Walks allowed 196 180 Appearances 84 84 Starts 61 58 No-hitters 10 0 1 -hitters 13 0 Perfect games 2 0 Shutouts 29 0 Damiani defeats Gregg Unbeaten Italian Francesco Damiani of Italy captured the newly-estabilished WBC junior heavyweight title by knocking out American Eddie Gregg in the first round Saturday night in Lucca, Italy.

Damiani, 28, shook Gregg with two powerful right hooks and finished him before the second minute of the scheduled 12-round bout with a combination series. fit 'it Williams captures title Walter Ray Williams last season's Professional Bowlers Association Player of the Year, knocked off top-seeded Marshall Holman 277-205 in the title game of the 1 50,000 Miller Lite Classic Saturday in Miami to capture his first PBA championship of the year. The title was the fourth career PBA victory for Williams, who won his previous three championships and $145,550 last year. The tournament is the first leg in the 1 million Miller Lite Slam. If Williams wins the upcoming Miller Lite Championship in Milwaukee and the Miller Lite Open in Cleveland, he will earn a $1 million bonus from the Miller Brewing Company.

If he wins one of those two events, he will earn a $50,000 bonus. He won $27,000 for his victory Saturday. -i -WW "My teammates were all nice to me, but they showed me aspects of the game that weren't so nice," said Clyde. "The drinking was there. And the women? They're there.

They're thrown at you really. I don't condone a lot of things that went on. But people have different ways of winding down. "Alcohol was never something I had to have. I was never an alcoholic, but I abused it for a time.

Yes I did, especially in 1 974 when so many things were happening. I drank too much. I guess I was just trying to escape." A family man Everything happened too fast That's the epitaph of Clyde's major league career. But it doesn't sum up his personal life today. He made sure of that.

"I don't make as much money and I don't have as much free time," said Clyde, now 31. "But now I am the happiest I've ever been in my life." He works for McCauley Lumber in Tomball, Texas, about 35 miles north of Houston. The company is owned by his father-in-law. "I married the boss' daughter," he says, laughing. "It's called job security." He's in his office six days a week, answers his own phone and, he says, loves every minute of it.

He hunts and fishes, takes in a rare Astros game in his spare tim. Around the office he's David Clyde the businessman, not David Clyde, the ex-ballplayer. "He's like everybody else, one of the guys" said Glenn Vickery, a co-worker. "You'd never know David was a former ballplayer by looking at him or talking to him. I'm sure he's a happy man now, with his family and all.

He's just a good guy." That's all David Clyde ever wanted to be just a good guy, with a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. "Maybe that's why I handled all the attention so well," he said. "And it's probably one of the biggest reasons why I got out of baseball. I'm just the average Joe. You know, just because I can throw a ball better than 99.9 percent of the world doesn't make me better than anybody else.

But there are players in the game who think they are bigger than life or the game itself. Fans are as much at fault as the players are because people cater to you. And that's Just not right." It wasn't right for Clyde. Disillusioned with the game And there were other things that also weren't right for him, like the way he says he was treated during his professional career. "They (the teams) never failed to remind you that there's 500 people standing on the street corner wanting to wear your jock," said Clyde.

"That may be true, but that's not the way you're supposed to deal with people." That was part of the reason a sore shoulder also helped his decision why Clyde left baseball in 1 98 1 as a struggling minor leaguer in the Houston Astros chain. "You know how they treat you in says Clyde. "The Rangers released me (in 1980) when I had a sore arm. When you use up your usefulness to them, you're gone. "It all started in my first year.

There used to be a Steak and Ale restaurant about a block or two from the ballpark in Arlington. Well, I'd go there to meet my family and some friends after every night game and by the time you'd eat and talk it would be about midnight or 1 in the morning. It's not like I had to get up early in the morning, or anything. But the owners didn't like that. They said I was spending too much time with my family.

It's all part of them trying to own you, control every part of your life." His current wife, Robin, who met David in 1980 while he was recovering from his shoulder injury and married him a year later, can only Imagine how difficult David's first few years In the major leagues were. "I can't see how he handled it so well," said Robin, a former cheerleader for Aldine High School in Houston when David was at Westchester. "He had some problems from what he tells me. I don't know if I could have helped him had I known him then. And I don't know if we'd still be married today if we had gotten married during that time.

But there he was, just a kid, and all those people pulling strings on him like he was a puppet." French, his high school coach, wonders to this day if Clyde would still be pitching had he been handled differently by his major league coaches, 1 Coghlan wins mile Ireland's Eamonn Coghlan used a strong finishing kick to win his fourth-consecutive indoor mile race of the season, while Lee McRae's sizzling start carried him to victory over Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson in the men's dash Saturday night in the U.S. Olympic Invitational track and field meet at the Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford, N. J. In addition, Jackie Joy ner-Kersee scored a rare double, winning the women's high hurdles and long jump. Coghlan was clocked in 3:56.83.

The race was slow, because the expected pacesetter, Charles Cheruiyot of Kenya, did not go out quickly. The victory was a record fourth for Coghlan In the race's 18-year history. His previous triumphs had come in 1 980, 1 983 and 1985. DAVE ANDERSONNews-Press "I always felt that too many people wanted too much to do with David's career," said French. "People would ask me what I did and I'd tell them all I did was make sure there were no holes from the mound to the dugout so he wouldn't twist his ankle.

"People just wouldn't let him be. He had so much God-given ability, it was almost scary. There's never been a high school pitcher before or since David Clyde. But everybody wanted to make him into their type of pitcher, teaching him to change speeds and everything. Remember Don Drysdale? The only speed he changed was how fast he got back to the dugout.

That's the way they should have treated David. Just let him be." Clyde agreed. "In 1974, instead of trying to work with what I had, which was a hard fastball and a ball that moved, they tried to change me into a sinkerslider pitcher," he said. "I could never figure it out. Why take a 19-year-old that throws the ball 95-miles-an-hour and tell him to tone it down?" Clyde, though, who finished his major-league career with 18 wins and 33 losses, is not bitter.

"There's not a whole lot of people fortunate in this world to do what they want to do, but I did," he said. "When I was in school all the teachers would write on my report card, 'Loves to read, does excellent book Well, what they failed to realize was the books I was reading were about Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and people like that. Sports was my life. It was my dream. "Everybody wants to be the best.

And I'm disappointed in that sense. When I started out I wanted to be the best left-handed pitcher ever in the game and I wanted to play for 20 years. I thought I owed people that I got the opportunity that 100 million people wished they had." His life is now centered around his family Robin and children Loren, 15 months, and Reed, 3. Another son, 8-year-old Ryan, lives with Clyde's ex-wife in Tucson. Clyde's second marriage ended in divorce during his time with the Indians.

Ryan now visits David a couple times a year. "Friends and family are the first priority in my life," said Clyde. "Egos get in the way a lot with athletes. They affect a lot of marriages. You see it all the time.

You go over to their house for dinner and the wife is an afterthought. She's never Involved in the conversation, never involved in anything. The wife always has to ask herself, 'Am I really No. 1 in his "Before I met David, all the athletes I met in college were all pretty cocky. Like, 'catch me, I'm an said Robin.

"But David's never been that way. He never flaunts his baseball. He's never saying, 'Hi, I'm David Clyde. I used to play major league They always have to ask him and he'll just say, 'Yeah, I'm David Clyde. That's me.

No big About a month ago, French got a phone call from his old pitcher. "He just said, 'Coach, how you doing, said French. "I just said, 'David Eugene Clyde. What are you up I recognized his voice right off. You don't forget a voice like he has.

You don't forget a human being like David Eugene Clyde." 1 News-Press file photo David Clyde spent his final year of professional baseball with the Triple-A Columbus Astros in 1 98 1 He was out of the game at age 26. David Clyde was turning into a man albeit too soon, too fast and too harshly for any 1 8-year-old but this was what he wanted all along. "I would have signed with the Rangers for a bag of peanuts and a bus ticket to Pompano for spring training," he said. But baseball, the game he loved so dearly, helped make his life miserable. The physical act of tossing a baseball 60 feet, 6 inches, which he might have done with as much grace and prowess as any teen-ager who ever played the game, suddenly had become nothing more than a job.

Soon after signing that first pro contract for $65,000 and the reported $125,000 bonus Clyde lost control of his life. It began to crumble about the time the Rangers realized their 18-year-old should have started out in A-ball. His first marriage, which came during his first year in the big leagues, lasted just a year, or about as long as the David Clyde craze in Texas. "When I said 'I he says of his first marriage, "I knew I didn't. But I went through with it anyway.

I wasn't too grown up about it all and I literally paid for it." Marriage wasn't the only thing he was introduced to that he wasn't ready for. As he says, "1973 was a fantasy for everybody but 1974 was one of the worst times of my life." Clyde learned that the fast-paced life of a major leaguer is not the best environment for a maturing McVea jailed again Former pro football standout Warren McVea was jailed once again after failing to show up for his first visit with a probation officer, authorities in Houston said. McVea, 40, was jailed without bond Friday for violating terms of his probation on a drug charge, said Jim Peacock, a Harris County assistant district attorney. McVea was supposed to meet with his probation officer Friday morning, and he faced a possible urine test for drugs. On Feb.

6, McVea was placed on eight years probation for possessing cocaine found in a Dec. 18 raid on a southwest Houston apartment. On Monday, he was arrested in a nearby apartment where drugs were found, but he was later released without charges, police said. Soviet sets record Igor Lotore of the Soviet Union set a world indoor record forthe 1,000 meters, clocking 2 minutes, 18 seconds at the Soviet Winter Cup track and field meet Saturday, the Tass news agency reported from Moscow. The previous mark of 2: 18.58 was set by Sebastian Coe of Britain in Oslo, March 19, 1983..