Wadkins Fires Shot at Slow Players : Something Has to Be Done, Says Man to Beat in Crosby

PEBBLE BEACH —  Lanny Wadkins, long noted as one of golf’s fastest players, took a shot at his opposite number--the slow player.

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” said the exasperated Wadkins, who tees off today as the man to beat in the 44th Bing Crosby National Pro-Am.

“They’re walking around, lining up a putt they’ve lined up 12 times before. Nobody wants to see a player walking around the green for 20 minutes, and that’s what we’re getting.

“They’re tossing grass in the air and they’re looking over the shot. I don’t know what they’re looking for. It’s something I’ve never seen.

“And it’s not the good players that are doing it. You take Tom Watson and Craig Stadler and Fuzzy Zoeller and put them in a group and they’ll play in three hours,” Wadkins said.

“Last Sunday, I waited on every shot. The group in front of us, they played at their pace. Didn’t have to wait on a single shot. But they finished two holes behind the group in front of them and we had to wait on every shot. That’s not very courteous.

“It’s a problem. It’s something we on the tour need to deal with. I don’t know what the solution is. It’s not for me to say. But something definitely needs to be done to speed up play.

“Maybe,” he said, and grinned broadly, “last week I should have just played through. Wouldn’t that have looked great on TV?

“ ‘Hey, guys, you’re playing slow and we’ve got a fast group and we’re playing through.’ And then we get on the green, hole out and start celebrating while they’re still back in the fairway. Wouldn’t that look great?

“Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this, but if somebody doesn’t talk about it, nothing will be done.”

Wadkins, waiting not-so-patiently between shots, won the Los Angeles Open by seven shots last Sunday. It was his second victory of the young season, boosted his money-winnings to $172,350, reduced his scoring average to 67.2 and sent him to Pebble Beach, where he won the 1977 PGA, with the hottest hand in the game.

“It happens to good players,” he said, and mentioned Watson, Hubert Green and Johnny Miller among the men who have put their games at a peak for several weeks in a row.

“More than anything else,” he said of the hot streak, “you feel confidence. You stand on the tee and you don’t see trouble. You see fairways and greens and pins.

“It’s extremely positive. You don’t think about what happens if you hit a bad shot. You think about what happens if you hit a good shot.

“I know I’m capable of a very hot streak. But I don’t know if it will continue. Nobody knows. We’ll find out starting Thursday.”

Among his principal opponents in the chase for a $90,000 first prize over a trio of courses, Pebble Beach, Spyglass and Cypress Point, are Watson, Jack Nicklaus, PGA champion Lee Trevino, Masters titleholder Ben Crenshaw and defending Crosby champion Hale Irwin.

Other major figures in the 168-man field are Stadler, Green and Miller, along with Hal Sutton, Cal Peete, Larry Nelson, Tom Kite, Mark O’Meara and Greg Norman.