The term water hazard has taken on a whole new meaning for golf course superintendents this summer. Weeks of record-breaking temperatures and scant precipitation have left many courses in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions dehydrated and in danger of permanent damage.

It may be one of the worst droughts of this century — those of 1930 and 1966 rival it — with rainfall far below normal. At least six states have declared water emergencies this summer, and the restrictions have forced superintendents to find creative ways to maintain playable turf in the face of oppressive heat. Many courses using municipal water supplies only irrigate tees and greens during specified hours, while others using water from holding ponds or wells are having water trucked in or pumping it from nearby reservoirs.

A study by the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., found that 80 percent of 220 rivers and streams in the mid-Atlantic region are below normal levels, and 50 percent are at record lows. That's bad news for reservoirs; Liberty Reservoir near Baltimore, for example, went into late summer holding less than half its 43 billion-gallon capacity.

"I hate to say it, but we need a hurricane to break this drought and fill up the reservoirs," said John Kain, superintendent at Black Rock Golf Course in Hagerstown, Md. "Our wells are down about 60 percent."

Center Square Golf Club in Norristown, Pa., has received only 2 1/2 inches of rain since mid-June. The course normally receives six to eight inches in the months of July and August. "For two months, our fairways didn't get any water," said superintendent Dale Berton, adding that the course's summer revenue is down about 10 percent. "We were nearly out of water the first of July. We were trucking it in from our local authority."

In the face of water restrictions, courses in southeastern Pennsylvania could only water their tees and greens from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m., with 15 minutes allotted for syringing of the fairways.

The Misquamicut Club in Watch Hill, R.I., normally pumps 200,000 gallons from its reservoir during a 24-hour period. Its two wells can only deliver 100,000 gallons a day to replenish the reservoir, meaning that rainfall is essential to erase the shortfall. But the summer weather has put unanticipated stress on not only the club's pumping equipment but its water reserves. "The system was never designed to handle a lengthy lack of rainfall," said superintendent Bill Morton. The drought has created a few brown blotches at the edges of the fairways.

Hercules Country Club in Wilmington, Del., received just 1 1/2 inches of rain during most of August, but the course has been able to remain somewhat lush because superintendent Sam Snyder seeded the fairways in the spring with a special drought-resistant rye grass.

"We did it to eliminate Poa annua," said Snyder, noting that Wilmington had 22 days in July with temperatures above 90 degrees. "We're getting funny looks because people think we're watering. We haven't watered a fairway in three weeks. (But) if we hadn't seeded, they'd be dead."

If the drought doesn't break soon, the accumulating problems could become disastrous. Snyder said rainfall levels have been below normal for four out of the last five years. Overseeding can help, but it requires extra water during the grow-in period.

"Overseeding is a crapshoot at this point," said Peter Landschoot, a turfgrass exchange specialist at Penn State University. "No matter how much rain we get, we'll be under water restrictions until at least next year. But if anything, this has got people thinking about their water a little bit more."

— David Shefter

Forget the Caddie — Where's the Sherpa?

No one will ever confuse the inaugural U.X. Open with the U.S. Open, and Mountain Creek Resort hardly resembled Pebble Beach or Pinehurst No. 2. Then again, the 62 players who converged on a tiny ski area in Vernon, N.J., in late August weren't exactly expecting pristine conditions. In fact, most didn't really know what to expect from this new "alternative" golf tournament.

"I have never played golf on a ski resort before," said Brian Owens, who captained last season's University of Pennsylvania golf team. "It's not like anything we experienced before."

Like taking a gondola ride to the first tee. Or playing side-by-side with mountain bikers. Where else can golfers find a slope rating measured by black diamonds (expert slopes) and green circles (for beginners)?

Inclement weather added to the challenge. Dense fog engulfed the upper part of the mountain, making some of the holes appear as if they emerged from the middle of Transylvania.

"It was tough to see," said 21-year-old Kevin Cahill, the overall winner who received an outrageous crushed red velour jacket with a zebra stripe, a parody of the green jacket given to the Masters winner. "And it was tough on your legs. But it was something different."

That's exactly what tournament founder Rick Ryan envisioned. With the recent popularity of made-for-television events such as the X Games, the 40-year-old avid golfer from Fairfield, Conn., thought he could devise a unique and fun format for golf, something that might attract Generation Xers to the sport.

"This form of golf isn't aimed at me," said Ryan, who has played the standard game since he was 7. "It's aimed at my kids and a younger, more fit group. Anything that gets golf clubs in the hands of kids, I'm all for."

The U.X. Open featured 10 holes, eight of which were downhill. Each participant was limited to four clubs. Since there was no actual putting surface, a player holed out by hitting the ball into a circle outlined by white paint. The holes averaged 288.7 yards, with the longest being 483. Of course, the key was finding the ball, especially in the heavy mist.

"I probably lost four or five," said Lee McManus. "But we had a good time up there. We're thinking about making this a yearly ritual."

Ryan hopes to expand the event to 15 or 20 regional sites next year with the goal of having the top players advance to a truly national U.X. Open that could be televised.

"There are 600 to 800 ski areas in the U.S. that by and large are collecting dust in the summer," Ryan said. "Four or five years from now, if you let me dream for a second, I could see opening this course to the public and see how this plays on a day-to-day basis.

"The word cool has never been applied to golf until recently. Now it is actually cool."

— D.S.

A Welcome Change of Channel

With so much golf shown live on television, it's difficult to imagine waiting six months to view the highlights. But that was the scenario 20 years ago, before the Internet became part of our vernacular and cable had yet to emerge from its broadcasting diapers.

On Sept. 8, 1979, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, now ESPN, aired its first golf event, albeit on a six-month delay. The LPGA's Sahara National Pro-Am actually took place in March, but it wasn't until later that year when the then-fledgling all-sports network located in Bristol, Conn., beamed it to the few cable outlets that offered its programming.

It would take three years for ESPN to produce its first live tournament telecast, the Merrill Lynch/Golf Digest Commemorative Pro-Am, a Senior PGA Tour event played at Newport (R.I.) Country Club. Only three holes were shown, with Jim Simpson serving as lone anchor. The telecast aired despite a dearth of equipment and manpower; volunteer spotters sometimes wandered from their assigned posts to become spectators.

"The main problem then was a budget," said Bill Fitts, the former executive producer who headed the network's first live remote broadcasts. "The head guys just asked us, 'Can you do it with this or can't you?' Those were the parameters."

In 1982, ESPN operated with, at most, five cameras, including a person stationed at one hole to run around and gather shots from a variety of angles. Since then, the network has aired more than 900 tournaments in its history, including 86 this year alone.

"We were scrambling to get on the air," said John Wildhack, now senior vice president of programming who served as a production assistant in ESPN's early days. "I never thought I would live to see (age) 25. I couldn't see doing this for 45 weeks (a year)."

But ESPN continued televising more events and in 1983 became the first to show live coverage of the first two rounds of the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. It also initiated super slow-motion replays of the swing and scrolling the scores for the entire field, not just the leaders.

"We kind of woke people up to more golf by giving them Thursday and Friday coverage," said Simpson, who, like Fitts, came to ESPN from NBC.

Today, virtually every PGA Tour event is given Thursday-to-Sunday coverage either by the major networks or other cable outlets. Senior, LPGA and national amateur events have also seen a boom in air time.

"The tournament can't be won on Thursday and Friday, but it sure can be lost," Wildhack said. "We needed quality programming on Thursday and Friday and the consumer was there. The appetite was there for golf."

Something golf-starved fans can duly appreciate.

— D.S.

Spirit of the Game — Cheryl Ladd

"When one of our daughters began to play, we felt learning the etiquette of the game was the most important part of being on the course, something that was more important than hitting the ball well. You shouldn't be on a golf course unless you know the etiquette and proper conduct because you could ruin someone's well-planned, much-deserved time on the course.

"If you are learning the etiquette, then you need to be learning it from someone who can help you all the time on the course. I like the idea of it being a one-on-one game. Four new players shouldn't go out on the course, and an experienced player shouldn't try to go out with three new people — that's too much on the shoulders of the experienced player. You need someone helping all the time.

"A new golfer should spend some time on the practice tee, learning what to do with the swing, but the only place to learn the etiquette is through the [USGA's Spirit of the Game] video or on the course. If you make a mistake on the course, you'll never do it again, I can guarantee that. If somebody says, 'Hey, you stepped on my line,' then you'll go, 'Oh, gosh!' and it becomes a real lesson."

— Cheryl Ladd

A Captain Whose Game Blossomed

The late Sir Henry Cotton won three British Opens while, at a much more humble level, his wife won the Austrian championship of 1937. John Beck and his wife each captained the Great Britain and Ireland side in the Walker and Curtis Cups. Michael Bonallack, the secretary and captain-to-be of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, added five British Amateurs to an assortment of titles won by his wife, Angela, who took a British Girls' and two English Ladies' Amateurs.

John Beharrell, whose term as R&A captain comes to a close this month, is another to have contributed to the husband-and-wife department of British golf statistics. Beharrell won the 1956 British Amateur at Royal Troon; at 18 years and one month, he remains the youngest to claim that historic title. The year before, his wife-to-be, Veronica Anstey, returned from a seven-month tour with the Australian, Victorian and New Zealand crowns. The British Golf Writers' Association awarded that junior touring team its 1955 Player of the Year title, an honor that John would inherit the following summer.

Beharrell was by no means the first English golfer to discover that his game went up a notch when he crossed the border into Scotland. At 17, he went there for the 1955 British Boys'. He reached the semifinals and, at the end of that week, a friendly Scotsman wrote him a note, suggesting he should come back the following year and try his hand at the British Amateur. It was his opinion that Beharrell might do quite well and get through a round or two.

Beharrell is not one of those golfers who recall every shot, but not surprisingly, he was well satisfied with a fifth-round triumph over Gene Andrews, who had come to Scotland fresh from his 1954 U.S. Amateur Public Links victory. As Beharrel remembers it, he played his best against Scotland's Frank Deighton, a memory endorsed by the fact that in their 36-hole quarterfinal, he covered the last nine holes of the morning and the first nine of the afternoon in 66.

In summing up a week that ended with a win over Leslie Taylor, an unsung Scot, Beharrell was described by Leonard Crawley of The Daily Telegraph in London as "the best chipper I ever saw" and proceeded to liken him to Bobby Locke.

Beharrell was offered a couple of scholarships to American universities. However, no sooner had word gotten out that those offers had been made than an official from the R&A quietly explained that the rules of the day were such that his acceptance would spell the end of his amateur status.

Adhering to a promise he had made to his father, Beharrell went to work in the family business. Before he departed the game's upper echelon, though, he played in three British Opens, including the centennial edition. He married Veronica in 1960, producing three children in that same decade, two of whom now work alongside Beharrell in the nursery garden business — an enterprise he started as a hobby for retirement.

As you would imagine, the couple were captivated by the former nursery that was Augusta National when they went there for a first time this year. Beharrell was particularly taken with the azaleas flanking the 13th fairway, for he knew how much work went into their maintenance over the years.

Beharrell played Augusta with a member, a senior past captain of the R&A by name of Ronnie Alexander, on the Sunday before the Masters. There came a point when the two players in front, who were obviously making a rather detailed study of the terrain, asked if they would like to play through. They happened to be Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal. Alexander, a Scot who knows his golf inside out, took the opportunity to introduce Beharrell to the Spaniards and, at the same time, advised Beharrell and Olazabal that they and Sergio Garcia had something in common. It was that all three had won the British Amateur at the tender age of 18.

— Lewine Mair

Toasters? No, They Give Out Wedges for New Accounts

Just a short iron from the practice tee at swanky Eastpointe Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., golf carts gather. But they're not full of players waiting to tee off. They're not even at a golf course.

They're waiting at Palm Beach National Bank & Trust's one-of-a-kind golf cart drive-up teller window, built exclusively to handle customers arriving with clubs in tow. "It's certainly the first golf cart window that I've ever heard of,"says American Bankers Association spokesperson Janet Eissenstat. "But for this community, it seems to make sense."

That's because nearly three of every four residents at the gated South Florida country club community owns a golf cart — a clincher in the bank's decision to spend $60,000 on constructing the half-moon-shaped addition to its existing branch.

"People in this community seem to take their golf carts out of their garages more than their cars," explains Nancy Mizelle, a senior vice president of Palm Beach National Bank & Trust, which has provided such unique services as fur storage at other branches. "A window accommodating golf carts seemed to be perfect for our customers."

The convenient window even might make bank security happy, too. After all, chuckles Eissenstat, "I don't think anyone will be making a terribly fast getaway in a golf cart."

— Ted Curtis