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Show t'4 I'aj-- e THK DAILY HKKALI). Provo, Utah, Sunday, February 11, 1996 Golff Onno iiz and tacky describe PGA show ' ; J to $34 million if he turned pro right now," said one golf official with no ties to an equipment company. Considering that a loose cannon like John Daly can get $10 million, that's not unreasonable. By RON SIRAK AP Goll Writer ORLANDO. I la. Every kind of j:liti imaginable, from your Imsu; .ejrfebrity signing autographs to mufjbinedia barrages of sight, sound and shill were used to bring buyer nitw booths at the recent I'GA ..of; America Merchandise Show, it) slopes of getting products into pnjiop and stores. Imagine your wildest shopping tantasy.i Imagine the biggest store you've ever been in. Imagine that fantasy explodes and everything .oars in sie like Alice when she itc the pill in Wonderland. That's oi t of w hat the show is like. I lyre's. i taste. Need one of those things that lick,s up golf balls at a driving wnj'J i iiqy had them here. Or hovv about a device that washes the ;'olf balbi after they are picked up. i lollrock. Engineering of Hadley. Maw, has one that washes 50,000 kills an hour and weeds out the cut balls. Imagine washing 50,000 balls m tljie ballwasher on the first tee at your, favorite course. L'lic most dynamic display was the Cobra booth. It's almost laughable, .to call it a booth. It was two stones high with Star Trek-lik- e cat walks, a video screen images of Greg Norman',. Hen Crenshaw and seemingly random celebrities appearing agagist a blaring backdrop of searing sound. Bobby Jones clothing had the ini'M .tasteful display, it's subtle fabrics flamed by marvelous old photos of Jones and neat examples of the ancient clubs, balls and bags of liis time. It very much had the (ialsby-hk- e feeling of Jones' era. There was a tie for the tackiest between the Killer Bee, with it's staffers. dressed in black and yellow .stripes to look like giant bumble bees, and the T. Barry Knicker Co.. with its spokespeople dressd ARNIE'S ARMY: The ii 2O-by-- with-.constan-t AP Photo Stanford phenom Tiger Woods could command a huge pro contract he decided to leave college early and try the PGA Tour. in, well, knickers. The best name has to go to The Mud Weasel, a ball retriever by Executive Assembly Inc. The dubious celebrity award goes to Ben Wright. The exiled CBS announcer was there for ProGear Inc. if TIGER, TIGER BURNING BRIGHT: What would ld Tiger Woods, a sophomore at Stanford, be worth if he came out of college right now and signed with an equipment company? "The figure I've heard is that Tiger Woods could get an endorsement deal of between $32 million com- petitive fire that made Palmer one of the most compelling and successful players of his generation still flickers strongly in him. Palmer, who will be 67 this year, keeps talking about cutting back but he just keeps playing. Two weeks ago he appeared in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, but not before taping a Shell's Wonderful World of Golf spot with Gary Player. "Then I'll play at the Senior event at Tampa and I might play Sarasota, then the Bay Hill Invitational, the Legends in Palms Springs and the Masters," he said. What keeps Palmer going? "I have determined that somehow in my makeup I still have a couple of good tournaments in me and I'm looking for those tournaments." he said. CHIP SHOTS: CBS will have more than 110 hours this year of golf broadcasting, including the Masters, the PGA Championship, 17 PGA Tour events, two LPGA tournaments, the Presidents Cup and a Seniors event. PGA The of America announced that the 1999 PGA Championship will be held at Medinah in Chicago. This year's at Valhalla in tournament Louisville, Ky., was one of the fastest sellouts ever. The PGA will be at Winged Foot next year and at Sahalee Country Club near Seattle in 1998. The PGA said there will be only about 1,500 to 2,000 tickets available to Americans for the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama in Spain. Details on getting them will come later. olfs latest craze: The magic metal CAtkl)JCalif. (AP) What's the 'absolutely, positively, can" innovation in golf? Titanium. No. it's not the stuff that makes Titanium Superman double-bogeis golf newest fuel for its ever-risin- g ' rocket. "SCainless steel will be jettisoned and we're going into a whole new area." said Mark McC'lure. president and CEO of Cobra Golf Inc. "Somewhere betvveeij 15 and 20 million titanium woods will be sold in the next three to five years." Asjvliable as Ben Crenshaw the golf industry ovef a has found something new to hang its v isor on every couple of Ryder Cups. The industry leaders have seen they' ale.s rise like one of Greg iiliiiaji's towering lee shots. y. t'Ao-foole- r, clubs, graphite shafts, oversied woods andnrbiis are but a few of the Perimeter-weighte- d recent fav tn ites. "'Jt's'nof so much a brand-drive- n industry as it is a product-dri-ve- n influsfryi"'McClure said. Ping.NTftylor Made, then Callaway and Cobra, have grown with escalatiiii! sales that have resulted in company mergers and acquisitions that have taken golf from the sports pages to the A section. And now, it's titanium's turn in the spotlight, as witnessed by a slew of new clubs at the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla. Titanium is a metal that's harder but lighter than steel. In its raw form, it's also harder to find than your last slice into the woods, so it's not cheap. But manufacturers are gambling huge investments that golfers of all handicaps will want this precious metal in their bags. There are only four foundries worldwide that can pour titanium, and Cobra has a deal with a foundry in Pomona. "This game is going to be over by the end of '96," McClure predicted. "By the time new foundries come on board, it w ill be too late. If you're not No. 1 or No. 2, you're going to lose the game." Cobra has added an extra twist that it feels will make it the titanium leader, just like its King Cobra oversied irons top that market segment. The designers at Cobra are building their titanium woods with specific but varied handicap-per- s in mind. "We're building clubs meant to help golfers immediately." said Rob Hirsch. vice president of product development at Cobra. The King Cobra titanium drivers will vary not only in lofts, but also in the design of the club. The shallower the loft, meant for the better player, the smaller the head and less pronounced the runners on the sole plate. As the loft climbs in degrees to 10.5 and 1.5, the head increases in both overall size and face sie. enlarging the "sweet spot" for the player. "The beginner doesn't have to learn the game any longer with clubs meant for professionals," Hirsch said. "The design can help compensate for a player's abil1 ity" The face angle v ill also change with the loft. The higher handicap-pe- r will grip a club with a more "closed" face, thus helping to square the club at impact and straightening the ball's flight. Sort of like training wheels, only on a ;.ten-spee- d. Cobra makes its own shafts and finishes the titanium heads at its Carlsbad plant. It also has developmental projects under way that could allow it to make its own heads, rather than have an outside - foundry pour them. All this means that titanium will be put to the test on the course as consumers try this latest innovation. McClure says Cobra's tests hav e shown that golfers play better with titanium woods than current woods. "You have to outperform the previous standard to have a long term success," he said. Cobra will introduce its King Cobra Ti at $367, cheapest on the market. McClure said Tommy Armour was forced to drop the price of its Great Scott Titanium from $458 to $375. Other titanium drivers, including from Taylor Made and Callaway, sell for $500. Zm INTEREST ZERO PAYMENTS seek return to elite status Kite, Couples By PHIL ROGERS Dallas Morning News into place. Couples has been haunted by disk problems in his lower back for two years. His preparation, has suffered, he says, with the end result being a difficulty to keep his swing on track for four', days in a row. Kite has practically lived on the driving range throughout his career. He was asked in a 1991 interview if he had to--work harder as he got older. "Can't work harder," Kite said.; "I have always worked hard." Kite had always putted well,. . too. Even his father, Tom Kite Sr., had trouble believing what-- ' he was seeing at last year's ; Masters. "I've never seen him putt like this," he said. "When you're missing a lot of littleputts, your confidence is shot.". Kite never got on track. He, ranked 36th on the tour in total; driving (which reflects length and accuracy) and 20th in greens in regulation. But Kite; was 231st with an average of ', 29.93 putts per round. That sta- - r tistic says as much about his.', ' chipping and bunker play as his1; putting. "I'm coming off a year that 1. hope is an aberration, some- -' thing that I can correct and start playing much better," Kite said..; "And I know that there's going. to be a lot of demands on my '. time. ... So I'm really going to . have to focus in on getting my ; , game back in shape." Questions about such indif- - ; ferent play are met with defiance by Kite. He does not believe they are a signal that he is on an inexorable downhill . ' spiral at age 46. is Kite's competitive nature clearly visible when he is asked about his desire to be the Unit- - ; ed States' first playing captain: in the Ryder Cup since Arnold-- . Palmer in 1963. "Say you get your game in.' shape but you're not quite; there," a reporter begins. "Could you ..." Kite interrupts. ; I get it?" Kite says. "'Say' "You mean, when I get my , game in shape." Whether he turns his game around or remains in a funk, ; Forgive Tom Kite if he is a d when he little heads to the first tee. The fall from the top of the golf world was so sudden, so steep and so unexpected, it had to be dizzying. Fred Couples can relate. His crash is likewise severe enough to cause whiplash. At least, he often feels like he has been Back problems were as debilitating for the powerful Couples in 1995 as breakdowns were short-gam- e for the meticulous Kite. offer storylines Many intrigue for the 1996 golf season. Few are as compelling as the two Texans' drive to get their games back into the form that has characterized their careers. Both Couples, a Seattle native who lives in Piano, Kite Texas, and the Austin-bor- n won major championships in 1992. Both ranked among the PGA Tour's top 10 money-winnein 1993 and the top 25 in '94. Both are coming off a season they couldn't have imagined when '95 dawned. Kite, named in November as captain for the U.S. 1997 Ryder Cup team, not only went win-lefor the second consecutive year but managed only one top-1- 0 finish. His scoring average climbed from 70.07 to 71.08 a difference that meant a drop from 22nd to 104th on the money list. Couples, on the other hand, won five times in '95. But his victories came in the United Arab Emirates, the Phillipines, China (with teammate Davis Love III), Jamaica and on Mars actually, in the Skins Game at the crater-lade- n Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, Calif. He could play everywhere, it seemed, except on the PGA tour. On golf's main stage, he saw his scoring average climb from 69.28 to 70.22. He dropped from 23rd to 63rd on the money list. Among those ahead of him: light-heade- rear-ende- d. rs ss Craig Stadler, John Morse, Mike Hulbert, Lennie Clements and Bob Lohr. Puritan work ethic demands that Kite and Couples work harder than ever in '96 to regain the standing. For different read sons, however, they are to work the pieces back hard-presse- ; -- ; Kite's Ryder Cup role will focus attention on his golf game. It has strengthened his desire to at least contend fori,', one of the 10 Ryder Cup spots ; that will be awarded based on , play in 1996-9- 7. No automatic membership for BeN By Associated Press was greeted with open arms last'1 year at the British Open." Michael Bonallack, secretary of the Royal and Ancient, said it is ! Judy Bell who has become the first woman president of the United States Golf Association in its more than 100-yehistory, creates an interesting situation for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. That group but it always has been usually grants membership to the USGA president. "I don't know what's protocol," Bell said. "I do know that I ar all-ma- le not automatic for the USGA presi-- t dent to become a member. "The only way you can become a member is to be proposed by a member and seconded by ; : two-existin- members," Bonallack . said. Asked if Bell would be pro' posed and seconded, Bonallack said, "I would have no way of; knowing that." 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