Hounded By His Heirs

If you only looked at it casually, through the normal rain, sleet and wind of the Monterey Peninsula , or around the fireplaces where the usual quota of actors and singers gathered to thank Bing Crosby for inventing golf, it seemed that another year for the professional tour began last week in pretty much the same old way. There would be another $8 million out there to play for at tournaments named for celebrities, hotels, industries, amusement parks or some locale known intimately to its friends as "Greater." Like Jacksonville , New Orleans or Greensboro .

This was not the case, however. There was a new excitement in the air, a new sort of talk going around, and a lot of fresh words were entering the vocabularies of everybody concerned. Words like Beman and Designated Open and Crenshaw and Mahaffey and some other words that have been around a while but suddenly are used with more frequency. Weiskopf and Miller and Wadkins , for examples. Three very big words.

What the sport has on its hands is a new era, actually. And it looks as if it is going to be every hook, slice or shank as thrilling as the late 1950s, which brought on the Palmers, Nicklauses, Players, Caspers and Littlers, or the late 1930s, which turned out the Hogans, Sneads, Nelsons and Demarets.

Last week's Crosby was a perfect time to dwell on all this because the 1974 tour was beginning with the best and most orderly schedule in history, the game had a new commissioner in Deane Beman , and very clearly Jack Nicklaus had some keen-eyed competition moving up on him in the form of Tom Weiskopf , who has entered the superstar category, and Johnny Miller and Lanny Wadkins and Ben Crenshaw , the best of the most recent wagonload of child heroes to roll in from Sesame Street . It was also convenient to dwell on all this during the Crosby because for several days there was very little golf played.

Thursday's round was both washed and blown away, Friday's was played in a damp, gray breeze and Saturday's was jolted by rain, wind, hail and, finally, darkness that stranded 50 guys in the woods with the deer. The third round was played Sunday, though it was cold and soggy, but by Monday the greens had become rivers and the final round was put off. Johnny Miller led by four strokes, but it looked as if it might take until February for him or anyone else to win it.

You ordinarily would not think that Miller, Weiskopf, Wadkins and Crenshaw had much in common. Two of them are tall and two are short. Their ages range from 31 to 22. And they come from Ohio and Texas and California and North Carolina . But the things they have in common are the following: superb golfing skill and style, the ability to hit the tee shot about seven thousand miles, different but refreshing and distinctive personalities, and a furious desire to beat Jack Nicklaus—by wrestling or fistfighting if necessary.

They also fall into a nice group that might be labeled the non-moaners. Most golfers tend toward pessimism and complaint, and there is nearly always something wrong with their game. If not their putters, then their aching shoulders. But Miller, Weiskopf, Wadkins and Crenshaw , not just last week but last year when they were "arriving," spoke a different language. Their confidence practically oozed.

"I'm playing better than I've ever played in my life," Miller said, prophetically, just before the Crosby began.

Weiskopf said, "Everybody said I ought to have a letdown after the British Open, and my life would get complicated. I'm playing great. I don't see why I ever have to play bad. And I love attention. Man. so far I think the heat's fun."

Wadkins said, "You can just get ready for me to win a major championship."