BIG TIP FOR SPECTATORS: BRING A SENSE OF HUMOR.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

Essential stuff to know before throwing everything into the 4Runner and heading out naively to the Riviera Country Club for the final two rounds of the Nissan Open:

Best things to bring:

1. Cash. But don't expect to use it.

They've got a new system for buying food. It's a debit card. Here's how it's supposed to work:

You give one guy a bunch of your money. He gives you a card. Can you pay for this card with one of your real credit card? No. Plus, that'd be too confusing.

Then you move two steps over to the food guy and ask for whatever you'd care to consume. You give him the debit card. He runs it through a machine that subtracts the total. Then you move on.

``It's a sanitary thing,'' said one believable volunteer at the card kiosk. ``You don't want someone who handles your food to also handle money, right?''

Sure, the last thing we need when paying $4.33 for a hot dog - that's the actual price - is another pair of dirty hands all over that piece of ground-up pork product.

(Although during the first round Thursday, Ernie Els hit a ball under a hot dog cart on the back nine and, while waiting for a ruling, got a free dog - he didn't pay cash or use a debit card. An illegal move? This is all new territory.)

At the end of the day, if you remember, you can take the card back to the guy you got it from, or any of the other inconvenient ``Cash Card Sales and Reload Center'' booths and ask for the proper currency on what's left.

If you don't go back, the money left on it will be donated to charity. Then it's up to them if they want to spend $5.50 for a Bloody Mary.

2. Reading material. Such as ``War and Peace,'' to read while you wait for the shuttle bus going to and from your car, should you ever find it once it has been crammed into one of the well-congested lots somewhere outside of Brentwood.

3. A wristwatch. Sure, there are clocks all over the place near the clubhouse and driving range at Riviera, but under each is a sign that says ``unofficial time.''

Your watch will also probably give you pretty much the same ``unofficial time,'' but let it be known it's your responsibility, not Riviera's, to accurately calculate just how long you waited for that shuttle bus to bring you there.

4. A warm piece of clothing. The hottest item at the pro shop Friday was a down sweater. It cost $95.

Best things not to bring:

1. Cell phones. There should be a rule that every spectator be strip-searched before entering the premises and, if any cell phone is found, have it not only taken away but destroyed in front of the children and pets.

As a means of personal communications, a cell phone might be the best thing to have on a golf course. If you're planted at the 15th green and some pals are over at 18 want an update on how a certain golfer is coming on, they can call you.

Thing is, those around you not only don't care to hear your Gil Stratton imitation, but when your phone rings in the middle of Rocco Mediate's backswing, guess who gets a Big Bertha wrapped around his neck?

2. Cigars, cigarettes or other things that can be lit with a match and sent wafting into the atmosphere.

True, Tiger Woods' caddy, Puff Cowan, probably puts a pack and a half away himself on the first nine and isn't setting a great example for the kids. But you wonder how he got his nickname.

By the end of the day, the canyon in which this golf course sits develops a haze that can't be escaped with a quick dash into an Andy Gump.

Luckily for those who still smoke, cigars are sold at the course - up to $15 for a Cohiba Churchill, if you've got money left on your debit card.

Thankfully, they're priced high enough so one will have to think twice before deciding whether to buy the cigar, or another $5 Hoagie sandwich to eat at Hogan's Alley.

Best places to watch the most picturesque shots even if you've got to fight for a seat by showing up at the crack of dawn:

1. The natural amphitheatre surrounding the 18th green, even when the sun's in your eyes and the wind's in your face at about 3 in the afternoon.

2. The cliff used as the first tee.

Worst place to watch that involves fighting the crowd:

1. Along the left side of the sixth-hole green - the one with the bunker in the center. It also gives a view of the seventh tee.

It also has construction workers pounding away big blocks of cement into little blocks of cement with giant hammers up on the hill behind it, to serenade the spectators and rattle the golfers' nerves - the ones that aren't already shaken by the sound of table saws from a house being constructed off the sixth tee.

Best place to watch picturesque shots without fighting the crowd - and there's bleachers:

1. The driving range, whenever Tiger Woods isn't there.

Friday afternoon, you could have talked to Kenny Perry as he was trying out some new Taylor-Made fairway woods he just got in the mail. Or you could have learned a practice trick from Larry Mize - he held a towel across his chest and under both arms as he practiced to make sure he was keeping his arms in.

Or you could have stretched out on the wooden bleachers and actually taken a nap while the kids ran around underneath looking for loose change that didn't exist.

Because everyone has a debit card.

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Photo: (Color) no caption (NISSAN OPEN debit card)