IT'S THE HOME COOKING FAMILY, FRAT BROTHERS MAKE IT EASY FOR MCCARRON.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

It wasn't like Scott McCarron didn't try to tell us.

Riviera Country Club, he said after shooting 65 in Friday's second round of this week's Nissan Open, is a special place for him - a course where when he gets there, he believes he can win.

Guess who's leading the tournament after shooting 65 again Saturday?

``I played really solid,'' said the former UCLA golfer, who played the Pacific Palisades course many times in practice with the Bruins and parlayed his love of the Eucalyptus-lined kikuyu-grass fairways and small greens into a three-round total of 199, within two shots of the 54-hole tournament record.

And that was accomplished with a relatively slow start Saturday.

``I didn't get anything going until the back nine,'' said McCarron, who got an emotional boost from playing his third round with longtime friend Brad Faxon and in front of a supportive gallery that included family and fraternity brothers from his Beta Theta Pi days at nearby UCLA.

``A lot of home cooking,'' said the outgoing former Bruin, a three-time tour winner who has thrived in this game since discovering broom-handled putters while out of competitive golf and watching a PGA Senior Tour event in 1991.

He went home that night, snapped the head off a 3-wood, stuffed an old putter onto the broken shaft and bonded the contraption together with sand and gum and Super Glue.

``It was like magic,'' said McCarron, who used the putter for two years - reaching the quarterfinals of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship that summer and returning home to tell his wife he was going to get back in the game as a pro.

It was a far cry from what he expected when he left UCLA.

McCarron enjoyed the college experience tremendously but failed to live up to his expectations in golf, where the athletic Sacramento native struggled as much for poor putting his final two years as for a commitment to take all he could out of campus life.

That meant fraternity membership and extensive participation in intramural sports, where McCarron played flag football, softball, tennis and racquetball. And golf, where he was talented enough to earn a college scholarship but not enough to make the Bruins' traveling team.

If the failed golf expectations disappointed McCarron, who grew up playing at Silverado Country Club during the heyday of Silverado member and eventual Hall of Famer Johnny Miller, he still took much away from his UCLA experience.

He met his wife, Jennifer, there, and made lifelong friends, like Bruins teammate and current Tierra Rejada teaching professional Roger Gunn, the 2001 Southern California PGA teacher of the year. And all those fraternity brothers who have turned out to cheer him this week and treated him to a fraternity house dinner Friday night.

How does dinner go at a frat house for a 36-year-old returning brother?

``It's all secret stuff, I can't tell you,'' said McCarron, who would admit only to ``no food fights.''

Whatever he ate, it must have left McCarron hungry to continue his Riviera success Saturday, when he recorded four birdies to share the tournament lead by the 12th hole. He was overtaken when midway leader Toru Taniguchi birdied No. 16, but McCarron took the lead right back on No. 17 with a 56-foot putt for an eagle.

``There's no reason you can't shoot 65 every day,'' he said afterward.

If he can do it again today, he might regard Riviera as not only his favorite course but also the site of his first Nissan Open victory.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1) Former UCLA golfer Scott McCarron chips to the green on No. on Saturday.

(2) Brad Faxon fires out of the sand near the first green during the third round at the Nissan Open.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

Box:

(1) THIRD-ROUND SCORES

(2) FINAL-ROUND TEE-TIMES