GOING LONG HELPED MCCARRON REVIVE PRO CAREER.

Byline: Mark Whicker Orange County Register

The fixation on alma mater is an odd piece of Americana.

People, particularly athletes, identify fiercely with their schools and presume everyone else does, too. It validates the myth that college was the best time of everyone's life. Growing up wasn't. That's why the university often tugs the heart harder than the hometown.

The more golf tournaments Scott McCarron wins, the more glory he reflects on UCLA.

But if he wins at Riviera this weekend - he is one of 143 participants who are not named Tiger Woods but are permitted to play anyway - one should not expect a Scott McCarron Golf Scholarship program at Westwood.

Five Bruins golfers brought home the '88 NCAA title, but McCarron was not one of them. He never really made it into the rotation and was not even mentioned in Bruins media guides.

He uses a Bruins puppet as a wood cover. ``I put it back on when the basketball team beat Duke,'' he explained Tuesday.

But everything he loves about golf happened before he found UCLA and didn't happen again until he left.

That includes a victory at New Orleans last year and a spirited run at the Masters, where McCarron finished a dogged 10th, at 2-under par. Those were his only two Top Ten finishes, but he bagged over $400,000 and has an 11th, a 20th and a seventh this year.

``And when I was at UCLA, I was never better than 7 through 10 on the team,'' he said. ``I'll always be happy I went to school here. I got a great education and I met my wife. The golf was the only problem. I just wasn't one of the favored guys. It happens at a lot of schools. I learned life wasn't fair.''

Eddie Merrins, the pro at Bel Air Country Club and ex-Bruins coach, remembers McCarron but doesn't remember being unfair.

``He always had a lot of ability,'' Merrins said. ``He was the Northern California Amateur champion. But he never could put it together for us, for whatever reason. Often when that happens, a young player tends to blame everything on his putter. You know, `I hit it great but just couldn't sink any putts.'

``Then he tried to get on the (PGA) Tour, couldn't, quit for a while, came back and all of a sudden, he's winning a tournament.''

None of the championship Bruins made it, although Brandt Jobe has ridden the gravy train of the Japanese Tour. Tim Cruikshank is playing mini-tours, Bobby Lasken and Rich Greenwood are teaching golf and Kevin Leach is playing in Asia.

Meanwhile, McCarron moved back to Sacramento and dived headlong into the real world. Entire weeks would pass with McCarron's clubs trapped in the trunk. He contemplated law school but then joined his dad's embroidery business. Putting logos on shirts, in other words.

``That was a way for me to stay involved with golf without really getting competitive again,'' McCarron said. ``You'd set up corporate outings, organize tournaments, play with some guys. I was thinking, hey, if I play golf with six guys, that's six extra customers.''

Through '89, '90 and most of '91, McCarron refused to be seduced by his 300-yard drives. He knew they eventually led to wastelands, known to some as greens.

Then he attended a PGA Senior Tour event in Sacramento and idly grabbed a long putter. It was unlike anything he had ever used. McCarron would stroke the ball and it would actually go into the hole.

Stop the train. McCarron wanted on.

``I went right to the garage and made a long putter of my own,'' he said. ``I took a 3-wood and put a Ping head on it and took some gum to it and put some sand down at the bottom. It came out right at 49 inches. I took it out on the green and it worked great.

``I started playing seriously again. Then I got out of the business because I couldn't do it halfway. My parents were completely supportive. They knew I had some golf left in me and I guess I finally realized I did, too.''

But McCarron's game of catch-up led him through the mud. He qualified for the Canadian Tour in '93 and got some experience, and then he played on the Hooters Tour, a largely Southern Class-A campaign that, alas, features few chicken wings and bare midriffs.

McCarron kept bombing incomprehensible drives for a guy who's resolutely average at 5-foot-10 and 170. At Augusta last year, he averaged 310 yards off the tee through the first three rounds.

And he has always oozed confidence. Sometimes with reason.

It did not occur to McCarron that he would miss the cut at the '94 Qualifying School tournament, even when he began 73-74-74. He brought it in 67-69-69 and made it by two strokes.