Kite Ponders Another Winning Combination

The career of Tom Kite, travel agent, shoved off again Sunday at Sherwood Country Club, where he teamed with Jay Haas to win the Franklin Templeton Shark Shootout, then issued himself a mental boarding pass for next year’s Ryder Cup.

Kite is the U.S. captain for the 1997 event in September at Valderrama, Spain, and he already is spending a lot of time thinking about what kind of team he might send to face the Europeans.

In fact, the way it’s looking so far, Kite might want to bring baby-sitters instead of caddies.

“Potentially, it could be a very young team,” said Kite, who listed three who would be Ryder Cup rookies in 1997--Justin Leonard, 24, Steve Stricker, 28, and Tiger Woods, 20.

Two more rookie possibilities are Tommy Tolles, 30, and David Duval, 25, who are also in the top 16 on the Ryder Cup points list.

As for Kite himself, the captain doesn’t put too much stock in the fact that other captains, such as Lanny Wadkins, didn’t play very well after being appointed because of the burdens of their Ryder Cup duties.

“You’ve got different personalities there,” Kite said. “Lanny got into the Ryder Cup . . . I mean he really got into the Ryder Cup. I don’t think I’m any less concerned, but Lanny was into it so much, it affected his golf game.”

Kite, 46, had what he called “a dud” of a year with one top-10 finish in 21 events, but he is optimistic about his chances next year.

Kite hopes to play his way onto the Ryder Cup team and he has no plans to cut back on his schedule in 1997, basically because he can’t keep up with the players if he’s back home in Austin, Texas, taking it easy.

On Sunday, Kite and Haas did it the hard way on a cool, mostly overcast day.

They toured the back side with nine consecutive birdies, finished with a 12-under-par 60 playing scramble and won by two shots over Craig Stadler-Lanny Wadkins and Hale Irwin-Lee Janzen.

The team of Haas-Kite split $300,000 for winning with a 29-under-par 187.

Haas’ reaction?

“It’s a thrill to be here,” he said.

Naturally, but another thrill had occurred earlier, right after his drive on the par-four 14th hole wound up under some trees.

Haas figured there was only one thing to do as he stood 173 yards from the hole, holding a 7-iron. He quickly charted a probable flight path for the ball that featured everything short of banking the ball off the flagstick.

“Under, up, over, around, hook,” Haas said.

“You know, I just had a vision of the shot. I hit it kind of like I was thinking and it went five feet from the hole.”

From there, Haas rolled in the putt for birdie and the race to the bank was on.

The Irwin-Janzen and Stadler-Wadkins teams split $142,500 each as part of the $1.1-million payday, when even the last-place team of Duval and John Daly was able to divide $60,000.

Irwin said he and Janzen had a chance, but they couldn’t get anything going.

Plus, there was that little streak by Haas-Kite on the back side.

“Nine under the last nine holes . . . that makes it pretty hard to catch up,” Irwin said.