By BOB GILLESPIE

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. – This week was a little different, Laura Diaz conceded. This was more personal, a warm-and-fuzzy three days of golf.

But not so different, she said, that her goals had changed.

As the 26-year-old former Wake Forest player walked the hilly fairways of Mount Vintage Plantation Golf Club during the LPGA Tour’s recent inaugural Asahi Ryokuken International Championship, Diaz felt more than just admiration (from the galleries) and respect (from other competitors). She also felt nurtured and loved.

No wonder. Toting her bag was her husband of less than a year, Kevin Diaz. And trekking along outside the gallery ropes, cheering every shot and sighing at every missed putt, were upwards of 60 fans visible from a distance in their red-on-white "Laura’s Legion" T-shirts.

To win here, just a few miles from Kevin’s parents adopted home, would’ve been the perfect ending for the finest year so far of a four-year LPGA career, she said.

"I think that there would be a special-ness to this week, because my in-laws live in McCormick (S.C.), and I’ve got a lot of their friends and family out following," Diaz said early in the week. "So that would make it special."

Then the smile was replaced by a more determined look. "But I’ve got to tell you," she said, "that whenever it comes, it’s going to be pretty special to me."

Diaz laughed. "Any tournament. Any place in the world."

Her first victory, that is.

It didn’t happen here, though it could’ve. Two shots off the lead on Sunday morning, Diaz struggled to a final-round 76, her second-worst round of 2001 (she shot a second-round 77 to miss the cut at the U.S. Open). Had she managed a 70 – her first two rounds were 67 and 69 – she would’ve been in a playoff with winner Tina Fischer.

Instead, she tied for 16th, her 15th top-20 finish of a season in which she has won $715,816, good for eighth on the LPGA official money list, her best finish to date.

More significantly, she was the second highest-ranking American player, trailing only veteran Dottie Pepper (sixth). On an LPGA Tour that is increasingly dominated by international players – Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak – Diaz is the hottest up-and-coming native-born contender.

The daughter of Florida teaching pro Ron Philo seemingly has it all: terrific golf game, good looks, strong support system, and a personality that leads her to speak out on issues such as the LPGA’s failure to aggressively sell itself to the public.

All she lacks now is that breakthrough victory.

"I want to win golf tournaments, and I would love to be in the (LPGA) Hall of Fame," she said. "That’s my main goal. So I just really am looking forward to that first win and getting started on my way to achieving the goal of the Hall of Fame."

Bold words for a player in only her third full LPGA season. Yet her professional progress to date – after a Wake Forest career in which she won the 1995 Atlantic Coast Conference title and the North and South Amateur – suggests Diaz’s future is unlimited.

In 1999, she made 19 of 26 tournament cuts, had a tie for sixth as her best finish and ranked 64th on the money list. Last year, Diaz was 23-of-26 on cuts, finished 33rd in earnings and had a tie for third.

Then came 2001. Eleven times, she finished in the top 10. Four times, she has been second, including the McDonald’s LPGA Championship, where she finished two shots behind Webb.

In none of those second-place finishes has Diaz had even a share of the lead. She’d love to see what she could do if she did.

"I think patience is the name of the game," she said. "There’s been a few times this year where I think I’ve gotten a little quick down the home stretch when I was in contention.

"Anyone who plays golf knows you need to have a lot of patience, and I know it a little better than some."

And not just on the golf course. This year, Diaz has become as well-known for her comments about the LPGA’s need to use its players’ sex appeal to win new fans as for her golf.

In New Albany, Ohio, Diaz told a reporter how she had heard comments about how her Tommy Hilfiger shorts, which she trimmed from kneecap level to mid-thigh, were too daring. Rather than meekly lower the hems, she said the LPGA needed to follow her lead.

"We should market sex. Sex sells," she told the Columbus Dispatch. "I personally don’t care how we get people to watch us, just so they watch us. We need to grab the people we can’t get any other way, and that’s sex."

Although the LPGA Tour had marketed sex appeal in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly through Laura Baugh (Golf Digest’s Most Beautiful Golfer of 1972) and Jan Stephenson, current commissioner Ty Votaw was restrained in his reaction to Diaz’s suggestions.

Diaz didn’t back down. She did a "My Turn" column in Sports Illustrated stressing her point. An article in GolfWorld quoted her as saying, "Sex is what sells. We have to care about what we look like."

This week, Diaz was low-key, but hardly apologetic. "It got blown out of proportion," she told the Augusta Chronicle. "(The message was) come watch us play because we’re great golfers. But we’ve got to get them in to realize that.

"It’s just something to grab attention. That’s what everybody does."

Diaz laughed at the suggestion she could be the LPGA’s "pin-up girl," though. "I’m not saying I’m the one. I’m not the one to sell the sex. We have a lot of attractive women to put out on TV and sell the tour."

Still, Diaz has plenty of ammunition to help bring the LPGA’s image into the 21st century. She’s attractive, outspoken, bright, at ease with reporters. If there’s a better young candidate for the job of tour spokesperson out there, it’s not obvious.

What’s she lacking? Diaz knows.

"I haven’t felt very good after some of my seconds (finishes), and I’ve felt really good after some other seconds," she said. "I can’t answer that (how it will feel to win) now, because I don’t know how I’m going to feel.

"I think any time you win, you look back and say, ‘That was a successful week.’"

Soon, she figures. It’s just a matter of time.