One, Two, Three For Hubie

After the second-round 67 that gave him the lead by a stroke over Irwin, he said, "This pressure is like taking a college exam over and over again. I've made more birdies in the past three weeks than I've made in the previous year. I'm even beginning to get tired of raising my hand to acknowledge applause!"

Saturday's 66 was a peculiar round. Green parred only five holes, just one on the front side. The rest was nine birdies interspersed with four bogeys that put him 12 strokes under par, four ahead of his nearest competitor, Bob Murphy. His enterprise came close to foundering briefly when he made back-to-back bogeys at the 11th and 12th holes. After bunkering his tee shot at the 13th, his second shot hit a tree and found another bunker. With a third straight bogey staring him in the face, he began to make excuses to himself. "I'm so tired it's all right for me to make bogey here," went the refrain. But Green is not the golfer he used to be. The new Green got himself out of that mental trap and saved par.

"He's tired, but he has control," said his wife Judi the next morning. "He has discovered for the first time how strong he really is."

Hubert spent Sunday morning cooking a breakfast steak for himself and entertaining 7-month-old Hubert Myatt Green III at the Greens' rented villa across the street from the clubhouse. When his 1:22 tee time finally arrived, he began with a three-putt bogey from 45 feet. But Murphy, playing in the group just ahead and the golfer in the best position to turn the day into a contest, triple bogeyed the second hole. So Green's bogey actually gained him two strokes.

With a 20-foot birdie putt on 6 and another bogey after a poor bunker shot on 7, Green made the turn one over for the day, 11 under for the tournament. Nicklaus, playing with Green and Graham Marsh in the last group, had started the day eight strokes back. He picked up two on the front nine and was five behind at the turn. But on the back nine Nicklaus, too, made it easy for Green. He bogeyed 10, 13, 14 and 18 and finished two under in a tie for 11th.

In fact, not one of Green's five closest pursuers at the start of the final round was able to make up any ground on the winner, even though Green shot a 73, his first over-par round in three weeks. Jerry McGee, 10 strokes behind through Saturday, holed a bunker shot at 18 for a 68 and took the second place that nobody else seemed to want, five strokes back.

Standing on the 12th green at midafternoon Sunday with a five-stroke lead, Hubert remarked to Nicklaus that it seemed to him as though he had it won. Nicklaus, looking at a 10-foot putt, replied, according to Green, "Dooon't bet on it, boy." Green hurriedly apologized. And Jack missed the putt. March was that kind of month for Hubert Green.