WISE-GUY MCCORD IS A HOT COMMODITY.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth

So there's Gary McCord, the CBS golf analyst, outside the Fox Theatre in Westwood the other night, making his way through the human crush.

With a big Hollywood grin on his face.

He's hiding behind his shades, dressed in a white button-up collarless shirt, practically twirling his freshly-waxed handlebar mustache for the jousting paparazzi. And Kevin Costner is nowhere near him.

McCord, the technical advisor/minor co-star of ``Tin Cup,'' is in his motion picture premiere mode. He even stopped to ponder an ever-probing screech/question from Entertainment Channel reporter Melissa Rivers, who was reporting live.

Meanwhile, back in Louisville, Ky., where he's actually doing work this weekend, McCord draws a deep breath.

``I know, it's just embarrassing,'' McCord admitted about silver-screen fame.

``Warner Brothers is going to start renting me out.

``I'm getting as over exposed as Madden.''

McCord could have rattled off a few more one liners had it not been so stinking hot outside the production truck, where he and his comrades were doing the PGA Championships for TBS and CBS.

How hot was it?

``Hot enough to melt the ferns,'' he offered meekly.

McCord had practically melted.

Between this, that and more of this, he was already drained. And he still had about 26 hours of TV golf to go.

``I gotta get out of this business,'' he said half-joking, a reference to his new-found fame off the course.

Make the transition from frivolity to fairways.

It wasn't so long ago when McCord was living out of an 8-by-10 storage locker in Escondido. In 1989, McCord was just divorced - ``everyone gets a Mulligan,'' he said - and trying to figure out what to do with himself.

Three years earlier, he talked his way onto the CBS golf coverage because he happened to be sitting on a plane next to CBS producer Frank Chirkinian. McCord's life on the PGA Tour to that point had been rather uneventful - he had raked in good dough by then and was usually somewhere around 160th on the money list - but it lacked punctuation.

TV golf fans eventually became aware of McCord's very dry sense of humor, just as the golf elite were turning off. That led, of course, to the current two-year banishment from working as a course reporter on CBS' coverage at the Masters, which both added to his popularity and, despite what the Augusta codgers had hoped, made him more valuable to the network.

McCord's Rodman-esque ascent over the past few years as TV golf's wise guy has done far more good for the sport and its appeal to the common Duffy.

``It's a frightening evolution,'' McCord will admit, ``Darwin wouldn't understand it.''

His cannon-ball dive into the limelight - movies, books, speaking engagements - shouldn't overshadow the homework he still crams in and time on the course researching fresh information.

To borrow a Bill Murray line from ``Caddyshack,'' McCord does have that going for him.

The tornado spin isn't about to stop. McCord, whose book ``Golf for Dummies'' has become quite popular, has two more in the works. One due in September is a compilation of golf articles he has written over the last three years for America Online, which created a site for him on its iGOLF platform. Another book, entitled ``I'm Just A Range Ball in a Box of New Titleists,'' is due out by Putnam Books in December.

``I can't even breathe right now,'' he said, a reference to both his life and the weather. ``I'd like to see what my own bed feels like again.''

By that time, ``Tin Cup,'' scheduled to be released next Friday, might be out in video.

STATION BREAK What smokes

The new five-year deal that keeps Bob Miller off the streets and back as the voice of the L.A. Kings for soon-to-be Fox Sports West (soon-to-be-formerly Prime Sports). The Arizona Coyotes interviewed him for their TV job - they had ex-King Charlie Simmer signed as an analyst - but they couldn't throw nearly enough dough at Miller for him to desert L.A.. With Jimmy Fox also re-signed, that makes at least two guys who Kings fans will recognize from last season.

Fox hiring Ronnie Lott to fill the chair left by Jimmy Johnson on the Sunday morning NFL set. That makes two ex-L.A. Raiders - Lott and Howie Long - at Fox's Sunset Blvd. studio and zero NFL games for them to run over to catch during a lunch break.

NBC's Summer Olympics coverage incensed the New York Times into an op-ed editorial last Friday. It read in part: NBC ``has made some dangerous decisions about the way it blurs reality in the name of a good story. . . . The Olympic Games, for all their entertainment value, are still news, not a made-for-TV movie. This year's broadcasts, in their absolute deference to conveniently interpreted viewer preference, are in deep denial of that fact.'' Guess they just didn't understand ``Bubbapaloosa.''

Bret Lewis, the former Fred Roggin understudy at KNBC (Channel 4), wings in from his New York retreat to do the 10 p.m. sportscasts Saturday and Sunday for KTTV (Channel 11).

What chokes

NBC Research proclaimed that 209 million people saw its network coverage of the Summer Olympics, making it the most-watched event in television history. Wow-wee. Except that the rating, 21.6 and 41 share, didn't quite match what ABC did with the '84 Los Angeles Games (23.2/44). A rating point today represents more people than it did 12 years ago. And it still doesn't measure viewer satisfaction.

CBS has insisted that the Opening Ceremonies for the 1998 Winter Games from Nagano, Japan begin at 11 a.m. local time so that they'll arrive to the U.S. in prime time. We're confused enough about the fact that Japan is, what, six days ahead of everyone else? Does this mean it'll be live?

Doesn't matter how many times you go back to see ``Independence Day.'' Every time potential Academy Award nominee and KCAL (Channel 9) sportscaster Gary Cruz pops up in his cameo role of news anchor to update that the end of the world is near . . . it just ruins the realism of the whole movie.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: McCord

Box: Station Break (see text)