I stumbled frantically down the sloping rough to the left of the par-3 16th, through teeming mobs of Ban-Lon, Bermuda, cotton, Rayon double-knit and polyester, past the suspicious tournament marshals with the bright red shirts and the white styrofoam pith helmets, and on up to the place from which the players and their caddies had to exit the 17th green. "The man who leaves this green with the lowest score is gonna win the tournament," I said to a red-faced, red-eyed young man with a potbelly and glasses and a Budweiser flop hat who was sitting beneath the ropes.

"No shit," he replied. "That's why we been sittin' here all day."

What seemed like only moments later, a light rain was falling and Weiskopf, one-iron snugly in place, was walking onto the putting surface amidst thunderous applause and a smattering of boos. He had just placed a rather routine iron shot to the right center of the green, about 25 feet short of the pin. Included in his group were Lee Elder, one of the few black hopes on the PGA tour, and none other than Killer and his man, Regalado. Elder had played his second shot from the fairway, and had wound up about 20 feet past the flag. Regalado, meanwhile, had hit his second from a portion of steeply banked rough near the first gallery slope, bouncing his ball over the green into the semi-rough of the apron. Strangely enough, the crowd seemed to be cheering for him as well as for Weiskopf and Elder. It must have been because of his second shot from the rough.

"I never thought you would a growed up to be a press man when you was a little bitty boy," Killer said again as he brought Regalado's bag around to the back of the green.

Meanwhile, Regalado, a husky Mexican in his middle twenties, was grimly surveying his chip shot, moving in quick, graceful steps, like a matador inspecting a bullfighting arena. Then he pulled out an 8-iron and chipped his ball about six feet past the pin. He slapped his thigh in anger.

"Tough day, huh?" I whispered to killer.

"What you mean tough?" he said. "If we make that putt we'll still be leadin' the tournament."

Incredibly enough, Killer might have been right. The portable scoreboard read WEISKOPF -3, ELDER - 1, and REGALADO -5! Somewhere along the way, Killer and his man had picked up two shots on par and three shots on Weiskopf. Still Weichers or Hill could easily be even with or ahead of Regalado. And the young Mexican still had a tricky putt for a par. It seemed doubtful he would lead for long, if in fact he was leading now.

Then Weiskopf snaked in his birdie to go four under. The gallery erupted, and Weiskopf gestured "charge" with his left fist clenched. The one-iron seemed to shove itself even farther up his ass.

Elder left his birdie putt short and to the low side of the cup, collapsing and grimacing as if the ball had really had a chance of going in.

Now the pressure was on Regalado. If he missed, he would have to fight Weiskopf--and maybe Weichers and Hill--shot for shot on the 18th. I was so close I could see the ants crawling madly around the dimples of his golf ball and the beads of sweat dripping from Killer's temples as he helped line up the putt. Regalado double-checked the grain of the green for a third and final time, then stroked his ball smoothly into the back of the cup. Once again, the crowd erupted. But this time it was Regalado who was gesturing "charge." Killer scooped up his bag, and headed for the 18th green. "We gonna win," he called back at me. "I'm tellin ya, now."

I wasn't convinced until much later in the press tent with Regalado babbling in pigeon English, "I was laakee. I potted. I was laakee," and the rain pouring down harder and harder, and the pot-bellied old schlock-slingers who had never left the press tent desperately trying to find out just who the hell he was and what the hell he was saying when he lapsed into Spanish, and Killer taking full credit for winning the tournament.

"I told him every club to hit every day, and kept talkin to him all the time--you gotta talk to him or he goes loco," Killer was saying. "The 17th was the crucial one. We went off the tee with a four-wood--it's really a two-iron shot, but Victor can't hit a two-iron--then we went with a little seven iron from 160 yards out on the slope. I knew when we made that six-footer for par we were all right. But we had to go with a driver off the tee at 18 because Weiskopf was only one shot back, and could turn around and birdie the hole on us."

Which is, in fact, what Weiskopf did--but only after Regalado had himself birdied the par five finishing hole to wind up at six under par. Hill, meanwhile had blown four shots to par in the first ten holes, and could only watch glumly from the front edge of the 18th green as Regalado and Weiskopf holed their birdies to cut him out of first and second place.

Of course, I had seen little of all this, having waited hopefully on the 17th green for Hill's threesome to come through. When Hill missed a birdie putt that would have put him five under par, I had raced frantically up the 18th fairway, the rain soaking my notebook and ruining all my carefully recorded first-person observations into one another, trying desperately to get to the green in time to see the winning putt. It was no use. The putting surface was packed tight with belching, bellowing, beer-gutted golf fans who had parked their prodigious derrieres next to the sandtraps and choice sections of the apron for nearly five hours. They were not about to yield to the press.