Kemper Open

POTOMAC -- Finding room on their schedules for the Kemper Open often has been a troublesome task for the biggest names on the PGA Tour, especially since the now-$1.3 million event moved to Avenel seven years ago.Whether it was coming to the Tournament Players Club course a year before it was ready -- when it could have been called The Unkempt Open -- or being squeezed in between more prestigious tournaments on the calendar, the Kemper Open seemed to lack star appeal.Until this year.Even though the course is still a bit spotty after being ravaged by ice storms last winter, and that a date two weeks before the U.S. Open is still no bargain, the Kemper Open has perhaps its strongest field since leaving nearby Congressional.

POTOMAC -- Being the general chairman of a PGA Tour event is often equal parts salesman and social director when it comes to enticing the biggest names to play at your tournament. So what do you give a player who seemingly has everything but a private life?Beefed-up security.Aside from the usual perks that include free food in the dining room, free telephone calls from the locker room and free use of a car for the week, that's about all Ben Brundred Jr. could offer Tiger Woods for coming to next week's Kemper Open.

POTOMAC -- There will be no Tigermania at the TPC at Avenel for this year's Kemper Open.There will be no Tiger -- period.For the first time in his brilliant two-year career, Tiger Woods has pulled out of a PGA Tour event because of an injury. Woods was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a spokesman for International Management Group, which represents Woods, said the injury wasn't serious."It's a chronic back problem," said Bev Norwood.Norwood said that Woods woke up yesterday morning with soreness in his lower back and called Keith Kleven, a physical therapist in Las Vegas he had been seeing for the past six months.

POTOMAC -- There is nothing like 13 birdies in a pair of weekend rounds to get a golfer's attention.This is especially true when it is a former PGA Tour winner trying to work his way back from the ranks of the medically disabled.That was the position nine-year tour veteran Bill Glasson found himself in earlier this month. It was an important stage in a comeback Glasson hopes continues in positive fashion today in the Kemper Open at TPC-Avenel.Glasson, 32, is best known in the area for achieving his first tour victory at the 1985 Kemper Open when it was held across the street at Congressional Country Club.

POTOMAC -- Stuart Appleby was standing outside the interview tent at the TPC at Avenel yesterday evening, signing hats, programs, balls and anything else his fans would extend to him, when he nearly mistook Scott Hoch as an autograph-seeker."

POTOMAC -- Usually, when a tour golfer contemplates a change in his game, be it moving his left hand three degrees to the left or changing his ball from a Titleist 2 to a Titleist 3, he scampers off to seclusion with his pro and several advisors and a slow, painstaking process begins.Then there's Bill Glasson.'Tis said if the spirit moves him, the defending champion of the Kemper Open coming to the TPC course at Avenel in a couple of weeks will make an adjustment in the middle of his backswing.

Chris Peddicord and Glen Barrett shot 5-under-par 139s at Chartwell Country Club in Severna Park to lead six players (72 starters) from the local level to the sectional level in the U.S. Open qualifying process yesterday.They were joined by Webb Heintzelman and Jack Skilling at 140, and Steve Cartano and Wayne DeFrancesco, 141. The last two went birdie-birdie on the first two playoff holes to advance; Dirk Schultz went birdie-par and became first alternate. Cartano made an eight-foot putt and DeFrancesco a 10-footer on the decisive 12th hole.

POTOMAC -- Since moving down the road from Congressional Country Club to the Tournament Players Club at Avenel in 1987, the Kemper Open could have been called the b.c. open: bland and criticized.A couple of big names would show up every year, but it was usually left to the Tom Byrums and Gil Morgans of the world to win it.A year ago, eventual champion Mark Brooks seethed when he thought the media was portraying the field as "John Daly and the Other Guys."Daly isn't here this year, and nobody seems to care.

POTOMAC -- The hissing noise wasn't audible coming out of Ben Brundred's office Monday afternoon at the TPC at Avenel, but the general chairman of the Kemper Open has spent the past two days trying to put some life back into the $2 million tournament that begins today without Tiger Woods.Because of a back injury, Woods was forced to withdraw, leaving a long star-crossed event without its main attraction. Asked yesterday what it was like to take that fateful telephone call from Woods, Brundred said: "It was total deflation.

POTOMAC -- The satisfaction of being on top of the golf world TC left Billy Andrade as quickly as it came.Five years ago, Andrade broke through on the PGA Tour in a very big way. His first victory came at the Kemper Open, and he liked the experience so much, he relived it the following week with a win at the Hartford Open.Andrade was the first player in 12 years to post his inaugural tour victories in consecutive weeks, but a not so funny thing happened on his way to stardom. He hasn't had a successful Sunday since, but Andrade got a leg up on that elusive third tour win with a 5-under 66 in the first round of the Kemper Open yesterday.