OK, HERE'S THE (LACK OF) SPIN; MAYBE OTHERS NOW MUST WATCH OUT FOR MAYFAIR.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Billy Mayfair strode into the Valencia Country Club interview room from the back late Sunday afternoon, weaved through the seated reporters and climbed onto a small stage with a soft chair and a microphone.

Then, under his breath, to a man from the PGA Tour, he said brightly, ``Is this the same chair Tiger Woods sat in?''

Zing!

Then, he flopped down in the chair. And sat right on the microphone.

Crunch!

Maybe I'm being defensive, but was he sending us a message? Us, the gentlemen and ladies of the press, who, in our questions during the week of the Nissan Open, took Billy Mayfair about as seriously as Bill Murray.

Mayfair led the first and second rounds, and the subtext of the questions afterward was, ``OK, when does the tournament start?''

Mayfair slipped one stroke behind Tommy Armour III after the third round, with Tiger in the group another shot back, and it was like, ``Are you looking over your shoulder for Tiger?'' What could Mayfair say except, yes, he was.

Well, it's time to take Billy Mayfair seriously. He just won the darned thing.

Just when he was supposed to make way for Tiger and that huge gallery, he dug in and fired his steadiest round of the Nissan Open, a bogeyless 67 that forced a playoff with Woods. And just when he was supposed to get fairway grass kicked in his face on the first extra hole, the par-5 18th, he rolled in a 4-footer for a tournament-winning birdie.

It was Mayfair's tournament all week. Even if he was treated like a bit player.

His trouble is that he lacks the chiseled features and steely gaze you'd like to see in a battle-hardened pro. Mayfair has double chins - neither made of granite.

He's 31, yet people think he's a couple of years away from the Senior Tour. ``When he was 18, he looked 30,'' recalled a tournament volunteer who knew Mayfair in his junior-golf days.

But battle-hardened he is. Mayfair has won four times in 10 years on the PGA Tour after a celebrated amateur career. He has also met with the kind of defeats that inform a career.

In 1995, he led the NEC World Series of Golf in Ohio by four strokes with five holes to play, and wound up finishing second when Greg Norman chipped in on the first playoff hole. In '96, he again finished second in the World Series. He was getting to be Bill Buckner.

So, although Mayfair's victory Sunday earned him a spot in the Masters for the sixth time, he sounded happier that it earned him a spot in the World Series.

``That's one I really want,'' he said. ``That was painful for me.''

Another meaningful defeat: Mayfair finished second to Bill Glasson in the Las Vegas Invitational late in a dry '97 season.

``I guess after losing last year at Las Vegas, I got the feeling of wanting to win again,'' he said.

Mayfair - who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., with his wife Tammy and Rottweiler sisters named Dallas and Tulsa - called on one of his old Arizona State coaches. The man had spotted some flaws in his swing while caddying in Las Vegas.

To go with an improved swing, Mayfair displays the resilience of a Nerf ball. He made 11 bogeys in the first three rounds here, meaning he bounced back with a whole lot of birdies to finish 12 under par.

Sunday, he got a break when his group, playing right behind Tiger's, was slow early in the round. That meant Mayfair didn't have to watch the hoopla up ahead.

``I wasn't looking at the score,'' Mayfair said. ``I knew one thing - we weren't hearing a lot of noise up ahead like he (Woods) was going crazy up there.''

This wasn't a tournament for ``crazy.'' It was a tournament for ``steady.'' The wind played havoc with the first two rounds. The sloping greens, dried out from the rain, tricked up the final two.

``Billy hits the ball real high and doesn't spin the ball a lot,'' Woods noted. (He was warming up the chair for Mayfair.) ``That's what you needed out here this week - kind of take the spin off the ball and let it die on the green. Otherwise it might roll off the front.''

Rare brilliance, and rarer luck, came to Mayfair at the same moment, when he chipped in from 20 feet on the ninth hole for the birdie that made him the first to reach 10-under. If it hadn't struck the flagstick, the ball might have rolled clear off the green.

That should have told him this was meant to be. Still, he kept wondering what Tiger was doing. We could have told him, Tiger was just biding his time.

Even on the extra hole, with Mayfair 4 feet from the cup and Woods 15 feet away, Mayfair said he had the feeling Woods would keep the playoff going with some heroics. Who didn't?

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Chart

PHOTO (Color) Billy Mayfair chips out of a bunker on his way to winning the Nissan Open. He was steady on the final day.

David R. Crane/Daily News

CHART: LEADERBOARD 

Phil J. Krugel / Daily News