CLUB PROS' MAJOR `THE' PGA PLACES THEM IN SPOTLIGHT.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

It has been referred to as the ``lesser major'' and the ``other major'' - this annual August tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America.

The PGA Championship, which will be held Thursday through Sunday at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn., has taken its share of abuse.

It has been slighted as lacking the beauty and familiarity of the Masters at Augusta National, the peoples' championship flavor of the U.S. Open and the history of the British Open - a 131-year-old event known around the world simply as ``the Open.''

The PGA Championship even abandoned its biggest identity trait when it elected, in 1958, to discontinue the match-play format it had used since its inception in 1916 and which distinguished that tournament from its major-tournament brethren.

But this week, the championship of the world's largest working sports organization takes a back seat to none. It has attracted 99 of the top 100 golfers in the world rankings - including No. 1 Tiger Woods, who is bidding to win his third major of the year for a second time in three years.

Beyond that, any PGA Championship enjoys a huge appreciation at the nation's public and private golf courses, where more than 25,000 members and apprentices of the PGA of America work to grow their game far from the weekly national spotlight in which the touring players perform.

``It's our championship,'' said Tim Terwilliger, head teaching pro at Brookside GC in Pasadena. ``But talking to students and to customers, I don't think the average golfer realizes that, even though we're in the PGA. They think PGA means PGA Tour.''

Twenty-five club pros will be among the 156 golfers playing at Hazeltine, having secured those few berths via a year-long elimination process that advanced them through local, regional and national club-pro competition.

National Club Pro champion Berry Evans of West Virginia is in the field this week, along with the next 24 finishers in the National Club Pro Championship.

Mostly, they play to the quiet support from afar of their home-course membership and exit on cut day without much success. But the club-pro ranks have had their moments to cheer:

Tom Lehman, in the field at Hazeltine this week, was an assistant teaching pro at Simi Valley's Wood Ranch in 1987. After battling up through the minitours to join the PGA Tour full- time in 1992, he finished 10th in the 1997 PGA Championship. He also won the British Open and Tour Championship in 1996, when he was named tour Player of the Year.

Lehman isn't too sure about the current state of his game, which has become so inconsistent, he calls it ``a Jekyll-and-Hyde-type thing.'' But he has little doubt about the quality of this week's competition:

``I think this may have the strongest field of any tournament that we play all year,'' he said.

That's good news to area club pros, who hope the annual PGA Championship brings more attention to the efforts of club pros everywhere in the overall golf picture.

``We can't do enough to let people know as golf professionals the level of the PGA,'' said Rick Smith, head pro at Robinson Ranch.

``What I'm most proud of is that for this week all the golfers in the world know what PGA stands for, and it's not just the playing pros,'' said Rick Sessinghaus, a teaching pro at Scholl Canyon in Glendale. ``It's the club pros who really make a difference in this game.''

Sessinghaus, a former Cal State Northridge golfer who is now a Class-A PGA professional, next week will make his debut in that year-long qualifying competition for the right to play in the 2003 PGA Championship.

Like Lehman, Sessinghaus is not sure how far his game will take him when the Southern California PGA section championship is held at PGA of Southern California GC. But the Scholl Canyon pro knows what he likes this week:

``I'm just glad we're in the spotlight for a week,'' he said.

Sessinghaus has no illusions about finishing in the top 25 of a three-round competition that will include thousands of players. But should he somehow find the lightning, he wouldn't need to travel far to find out what it might be like to experience a PGA Championship.

Greg Frederick, head pro at nearby Oakmont Country Club, got all the way to the Championship in 1989 and includes the experience among his most rewarding in a golf memory book that includes presidency of the Southern California PGA section the past two years and section Pro of the Year honors this year.

``When I got there (Kemper Lakes GC in Illinois), I was a little overwhelmed,'' Frederick said. ``Usually, the club pros are paired together, but I remember in a practice round the group ahead of us was (Jack) Nicklaus, (Greg) Norman, (Ian) Woosnan and (Ray) Floyd. Their crowd kind of spilled back over us and it was a little intimidating.''

That and memories of talking golf over lunch with Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal prevail today over any thoughts of finishing third from last. Frederick missed the cut that year, but so did Fred Couples, Hal Sutton, Mark O'Meara, Corey Pavin, Lee Trevino and four others who had won or would win major championships.

That deep of a high-profile casualty list doesn't surprise longtime Griffith Park head pro Tom Barber, whose father, Jerry, won the 1961 PGA Championship.

``They haven't had any nobodies win this,'' Tom said. ``To my way of thinking, it's the strongest field. I don't understand why it is sort of 'the other' major. When my father won it, it was by far the most important championship, because it got you a lifetime exemption.''

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Photo:

PGA pro Tom Lehman, in the field at Hazeltine, was an assistant teaching pro at Simi Valley's Wood Ranch in 1987.

Michael Caulfield/Associated Press