| Las
Vegas, 14th October 1998
-Today Mark Calcavecchia played like a man determined to achieve his season goal
-- a spot in the Presidents Cup competition later this year in Australia.
Calcavecchia didn't come
close to a bogey all day, shooting a 7-under-par 65 under nearly flawless conditions
to tie Robert Damron for the first-round lead in the 90-hole Las Vegas Invitational.
"I figured
when the year began that if I made the Presidents Cup team I would have had a
good year," Calcavecchia said. "The Presidents Cup is my goal. If I
can hang on and do that, it's been a good year." Calcavecchia,
getting a break by playing in the morning before the wind came up, made seven
birdies on the TPC Summerlin course to beat by a stroke the opening-round 66 he
shot here last year when he ended up in a tie for fourth. Calcavecchia
also finished third here two years ago. "I've
had chances to win both years," he said. "I've been on a pretty good
roll here for three years now." Paul
Azinger topped a group of seven golfers a shot back at 66, while U.S. Open champion
Lee Janzen and 13 others were at 67. Among those at 67 was Chip Beck, who only
last month ended a streak of missing the cut in 47 straight tournaments. All
in all, it was a very crowded leaderboard with 39 golfers within three shots of
the lead. Calcavecchia
is currently in 10th place on the points list for the team, and needs to hold
that position through the season-ending Tour Championship if he wants to make
the United States squad. The
top 10 automatically make the team, while captain Jack Nicklaus said he will likely
round out the team with the Nos. 11 and 12 players on the list. To
make sure he has a good showing in town he clearly enjoys, Calcavecchia has put
some self-imposed limits on his stay for the $2 million tournament. "I
just like to have fun here," he said. "I like to gamble but I put an
8:30 p.m. curfew on myself here." Damron
also posted his score early at TPC Summerlin, one of three courses used for the
first three days of the tournament. In
the 93rd spot on the money list, Damron doesn't have to worry about a spot on
the Presidents Cup. He also doesn't have to worry about dropping out of the top
125 spots on the money list -- which means he is almost guaranteed a tour card
for next year. "My
goal this week is to have a good time," Damron said. Damron
made the cut in last week's Michelob Championship, only to pull out on Saturday,
saying he was burned out on golf. He didn't pick up a club until Wednesday, then
went out and made eight birdies before hitting a ball into a greenside bunker
on the 17th hole and missing a 4-footer for par. In
a tournament in which low scoring is an annual event, the first round scores were
not as low as a group as in recent years although the leaderboard was dotted with
scores in the 60s. That was largely a result of afternoon winds, which are predicted
to continue through the rest of the week. The
early players got the benefit of better conditions, including John Daly, who shot
his 4-under 68 at the Desert Inn Country Club, probably the toughest of the three
courses in the rotation. Daly,
showing no effects from jet leg after winning all his matches over the weekend
in the Dunhill Cup, hit every green in regulation and never made a bogey in what
for him was an uncharacteristic steady round. "It's
been a long time since I hit 18 greens in a row," Daly said. "I was
pretty happy. It's a nice round." DIVOTS:
Tiger Woods, whose first win as a pro came here two years ago, is not in the field.
Woods played last year as the defending champion, but is spending a few weeks
in England playing in the Dunhill Cup and World Match Play Championship. ... The
$2 million tournament pays $360,000 to the winner. ... Janzen says the mindset
is different in this tournament than most. "Here you have to think ultra-low,"
Janzen said. | 
