IDEA TO CANCEL SOGGY PEBBLE BEACH WAS ALL WET.

Byline: TIM BROWN 

Meanwhile, up on the Monterey Peninsula, where if you don't play golf in the rain, you don't play golf, they canceled a golf tournament last weekend because of it. PGA Tour officials handed out $5,000 checks to everybody who showed, then bailed out, leaving the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am without a champion and the loyal galleries without reimbursement.

All because of one hole. One fairway, really, the 16th at Spyglass Hill.

They did play golf Monday at Pebble Beach. The media was invited out, and several players reported a perfect day on playable fairways and slowish but true greens. There were a few puddles in the bunkers - bad news for professional golf writers, but hardly worth mentioning for professional golfers.

The word out of Pebble Beach is that a few players - all of whom had yet to play Spyglass - blanched at the idea of twisting a rule or two in order to play through a little standing water on No. 16. Talk about guys who have lost touch with the game. What, lift, clean and place is all right, but playing around a puddle or two isn't?

Fortunately, there were plenty of players who wanted to go on, who play golf as the masses do, as it lies, no matter the conditions, best man wins. Their opinions didn't save the tournament, but at least they weren't the first ones to the courtesy cars afterward.

"We should be out there slopping it around," Johnny Miller said.

"We play in some pretty bad stuff," said Peter Jacobsen, whose defense of the championship rolls into next year, unless it gets cloudy and tournament officials cancel because, jeez, it looks cold and windy out there. "We just need to tee it up and slop it around."

"I'd like to play no matter what, even if it's wet," said Justin Leonard, too new to the Tour to have warmth and comfort agendas. "Let's just hit it and go find it."

Without a doubt we would prefer that our Tour play on the best courses under the best of conditions. Occasionally, it's not possible. So, those guys just have to play the best courses under tough conditions, and maybe the best golfer wins anyway.

Add sock-wringing: Anyone who's ever hit consecutive drives over the back net at Studio City Golf and Tennis - and lived to hit another - has earned the PGA Tour daydream. It's not so much the cushy lifestyle, though it would be pretty good, and not all the money, though that wouldn't be bad either, but the freedom to play the game until it becomes dreary. How much golf is that? A hundred-and-fifty rounds a year? Two hundred? More?

How hard would it have to be raining for you to turn down a free round of golf at Pebble Beach? How about a free round during which, if you played well enough, they'd give you a bunch of money at the end, on a check the size of a beach blanket?

The events of last weekend confirmed that while non-Tour golf may not be pretty, it's real golf. Guaranteed, there is more heroism going on every day at Woodley than there is in a month of Tour events.

That is why we offer this short list of reasons to be a public golfer or a regular-guy private golfer, not that there are a lot of those around:

No matter what, there are only three (American Golf Corp. scenario, four) other people around to laugh at our swings, our shorts, our whining, our putting, our inability to afford to play at Pebble Beach.

We'll never have to play with a corporate vice president and laugh at his jokes and promise to keep in touch and compliment his wife and tell him his swing looks pretty good for a 21-handicap who plays four times a week.

Shorts. Gotta wear shorts. There is nothing wrong with the PGA Tour that wearing shorts wouldn't solve.

The anonymity. Not once, not ever, has someone with a bullhorn announced your name and hometown four seconds before your drive on the first tee. There is something utterly calming about that.

The snack bar bean burritos. Just kidding.

No public golfer ever trusts the practice green to fairly represent the 18 greens out there. You know when you drive up that you are about to see 19 different greens, including the practice green, and that some will be wet, some won't be cut, some will have dirt patches and none of the ball marks will be repaired. But did you hear Jim Colbert complaining about green inconsistencies during the Senior Skins Game? And did you hear public golfers laughing?

We get automatic two-putts on temporary greens. When do you think Phil Mickelson last played a temporary green? It's not golf if you're not trying to chip into a sunken flower pot once a month.

Seve reigns in Spain: The news would be if Seve Ballesteros were not named captain of team Euro for next year's Ryder Cup at Valderrama. However, expect an announcement any day from the PGA European Tour confirming Ballesteros' appointment. Then the interesting part begins.

"My problem is I want everything," Ballesteros said this weekend in the London Daily Telegraph. "I want to be captain; I want to be player; I want to win. But I will accept the captaincy, it will be a very proud moment for me."

The last playing captain was Arnold Palmer, who in 1963 led the U.S. to a 23-9 victory by winning four of six matches.

"Whether I am a playing captain we will have to wait and see," said Ballesteros, who will be 40 at the time of the Ryder Cup. "I would like to be, but we can decide that next year. One thing I will not be is a burden to the team. If I am not playing well then I will not play. It is as simple as that."

U.S. captain Tom Kite also has expressed a desire to play, which could make for an interesting final pairing on Sunday.

Stormin' Norman: Greg Norman, who is closing in on $10 million in career earnings, once again is attracting attention because of a few dollars in unofficial earnings. Norman is prepared to sue the European PGA Tour, which is investigating Norman over appearance fees that it feels are contrary to Tour policy.

Though Norman claims "restraint of trade," the European Tour has a rule against appearance fees of more than 25 percent of a tournament's purse. Apparently, players have complained to the Tour about Norman receiving six-figure payouts at a handful of European events last year.

"It seems like I'm always a target," Norman recently told British newspapers.

Notes: Greg Norman, who once referred to the layout at TPC at Eagle Trace as a "Mickey Mouse course" and as "carnival golf," has committed to this year's Honda Classic, back at Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, Fla., for the first time in four years. . . . Lee Trevino hinted recently that he will consider retiring in the year 2000, when the majority of his endorsement contracts run out. He also will be 60 then. Trevino, who had 27 PGA Tour victories, has 26 on the Senior Tour. . . . PGA Tour player Kirk Triplett and his wife, Cathi, last month had twins. The Triplett twins. . . . Did you know? Riviera Country Club is the only PGA Tour site without a water hazard. . . . USA will televise the first two rounds of the Nissan Open, Thursday and Friday from 1-3 p.m. CBS will take over on the weekend, from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday and from 1-3 p.m. on Sunday.

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Photo "I'd like to play no matter what, even if it's wet," pro Justin Leonard said of the cancellation at Pebble Beach. "Let's just hit it and go find it." Associated Press