Who to watch in person at Diners Club Matches is the big question

NEWPORT COAST - What foursome should you follow in the gallery?

What matches, ultimately, will be the most exciting for spectator

viewing?

Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson are clearly the biggest draw on the

Senior PGA Tour, while the team of Fred Couples and Mark Calcavecchia

probably will get top billing on the PGA Tour side.

But of the four teams (eight golfers) on the LPGA Tour marquee, which

tandem will pull the largest galleries today and Sunday in the Diners

Club Matches at Pelican Hill Golf Club?

Coming in, the LPGA Tour has the early edge in interest, starting with

two-time defending champions Juli Inkster, who earned her way in the LPGA

Hall of Fame this year, and Dottie Pepper.

Annika Sorenstam, paired with Lorie Kane, will no doubt attract a

crowd, while the team of Karrie Webb and Kelly Robbins should put on

quite a show.

And, not since the mid-1980s in the Uniden Invitational at Mesa Verde

Country Club, have the lady pros grazed the Newport-Mesa community.

Laura Davies, who won last weekend’s JC Penney Classic with John Daly,

has replaced Nancy Lopez in the Diners Club field and will be paired with

Kelli Kuehne.

From the PGA Tour, defending Diners Club champions Steve Elkington and

Jeff Maggert, who won the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship

this year, are favored to repeat, while Steve Pate-Mark Wiebe and Chris

Perry-Skip Kendall could draw some attention.

All of the players from the other three senior teams -- Bruce

Fleisher-David Graham, Gil Morgan-Jay Sigel and Allen Doyle-Dana Quigley

-- have played in the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country

Club (held every March).

Tee times today and Sunday are between 9:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., with live coverage by ABC from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Today will be the first time in Newport Beach history that a golf

tournament is shown live on network television. The senior tour stop at

Newport Beach is broadcast on cable (ESPN).

Members of the PGA Tour will play Pelican Hill’s unique 18-hole layout

(combining both courses) at 6,914 yards; senior golfers at 6,713; and the

ladies at 6,347.

The exchanges between team members should also be interesting,

tournament director Gary Pollard said.

“There will be holes, for example, where Tom Watson says to Jack

Nicklaus, ‘Maybe we can’t hit that far on this hole. Jack, you lay up and

I’ll go for it.’ That’s what you get to hear in the gallery,” Pollard

said.

Pollard, who limited ticket sales to 10,000, calls an event of this

size “a boutique event,” instead of the usual 35,000 spectators trampling

in every direction.

“You will hear and see the players,” Pollard said. “Spectators will

feel special.”

Bypassed last year because of the PGA Tour’s Presidents Cup at the

same time, the Diners Club Matches return, but to a different site,

having moved from PGA West in La Quinta to Pelican Hill -- the first

major golf tournament at the resort course owned by The Irvine Company.

“The golf course (at PGA West), the environment, (and) the marketplace

in Palm Springs were a little over saturated with golf events,” said

Terry Jastrow, President of Jack Nicklaus Productions, which operates the

Diners Club Matches. “And, at the same time, there is a wonderful

emerging business environment in Orange County, Irvine, Newport Beach,

Newport Coast ... it’s sort of a white-collar boom town USA.”