Hopefuls

Four golfers from the Philadelphia area trying to join the Senior PGA tour survived yesterday's first cut at first-stage qualifying tournaments. In Sarasota, Fla., former U.S. Amateur champion Jay Sigel of Berwyn shot 72, for a two-day total of 145, well under the cut of 155. Bob Thatcher, head pro at Olde Masters Golf Club in Newtown Square, shot 151. And Jack Eckenrode, of Quakertown, shot 155. In Tucson, Ariz., Tony Perla of Collegeville shot 148 against a cutoff score of 161. A total of 60 players are left in each qualifier.

That portion of the Philadelphia 76ers organization concerned solely with the game of basketball gets a head start on the season this week when the team holds its annual camp for rookies and free agents at St. Joseph's University. The camp is divided into two portions, with area players getting tryouts today and tomorrow and a group of players with more legitimate hopes beginning a four-day schedule on Wednesday. The camp closes on Sunday, with a game pitting the rookies and free agents against a team of Baker League all-stars.

With the Democratic race in a near deadlock going into the final series of presidential-preference contests, the candidates are debating the prospects of a brokered convention. Party chairman Paul Kirk, dreading the spectre of a political battle being played out on national television, already is making plans to head off any such development. He has called for the survivors of the state contests to huddle for a summit immediately after the California and New Jersey primaries on June 7. Summit topics: deciding on a nominee, a vice president and a platform.

Simon Cowell is the new Brit you will love to hate, the smug judge on American Idol who gives Fox's star-search smack-down its nasty edge. Like The Weakest Link dominatrix Anne Robinson, Cowell dresses in black and specializes in humiliation. The English record producer (of such unsuccessful-on-these-shores prefab outfits as Westlife) shares talent-assessing duties for the summer series with former pop star Paula Abdul and music-industry veteran Randy Jackson. American Idol - grandiosely subtitled "The Search for a Superstar" - debuted last Tuesday and Wednesday with two high-rated episodes, and continues with an hour-long show at 9 tonight and a half-hour live installment at 9:30 tomorrow.

The ability to find the VFW in Downingtown: very promising. Poor dental hygiene: a definite asset. The desire to grow muttonchops: a huge plus. Throw in dexterity with sheep shears, and Hollywood beckons. Those were just a handful of the attributes sought yesterday by the casting crew for The Woods, the next thriller by Gladwyne filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, best known for his megahit, The Sixth Sense. Walt Disney Studios, sensing potential profits, signed a deal with the 33-year-old writer-director in May for a film set in rural, 1897 Pennsylvania and scheduled for a summer 2004 release.

With the primary election for Chester County commissioner still 11 months off, Democrats are already lining up to replace Commissioner Patricia M. Baldwin, who said earlier this week that she would not seek re-election. For the Democratic Party, which is struggling to boost its image as well as its voter rolls, selecting a successor for Baldwin is perhaps as crucial to the party's welfare as the naming this week of Sheila Chambers as county chairwoman. Chambers, a manager at WCC Industries in West Chester, has worked behind the scenes for the last three decades and is considered by many of her colleagues as a unifying force within the party machine.

Faced with a virtual armada of Republican candidates for next year's governor and U.S. Senate races, suburban GOP leaders meeting here yesterday suggested the candidates winnow the fields themselves and spare the party a costly blood bath in next May's primary election. Including Philadelphia, the suburban counties boast the strongest GOP voting bloc in Pennsylvania, with 43 percent of primary voters. The meeting, held at the Days Inn near the Philadelphia International Airport, included a half-hour interview with each candidate.

For more than a dozen Eagles players, tonight is their final interview. The Eagles will trim their roster from 71 to the NFL-required 53 by Sunday. Not every player has the job security of Donovan McNabb. Late-round draft picks and free agents hope a solid performance in tonight's final preseason game against the Jets will persuade coach Andy Reid to keep them around. The starters will not play tonight, which provides a long audition for bubble players to make their mark. One mistake could mean unemployment.

The players dutifully ran through drills, passing, cutting, rebounding, defending. There was no dogging. That's because there were too many potential jobs on the line. The action was fierce, and the real games don't begin until today. Welcome to the NBA pre-draft camp, the four-day trial where every player's game is dissected down to the last rebound. The camp opened last night at the Moody Bible Institute's Solheim Center, with 66 players hopeful of making an impression. And there were plenty of people to impress.

No one from Philadelphia advanced to match-play in the 99th U.S. Amateur. Buddy Marucci, the 1995 runner-up to Tiger Woods and the area's last best hope to make the 64-man match-play field today, carded an ugly and costly double-bogey on Pebble Beach's famed 18th hole early last night to shoot a 78 and spoil his best effort at moving on. Sadly for Marucci, had he played it safe for par on the final hole, he would have made it into a playoff...