WELL PUTT

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

For a few terrible moments toward the end of Tin Cup it seems possible that Roy McAvoy (Kevin Costner), the driving-range pro from Salome, Texas, may actually win the U.S. Open. Oh, no, the quailing spirit wails, not another Rocky clone, not another inspirational fable to feed false dreams of glory among the little guys.

This is an unworthy fear. By this time we should have learned to trust the cockeyed integrity of Ron Shelton, who directed and co-wrote (with John Norville) the film. Surely the movies' reigning poet of knucklehead machismo, the man who gave us Bull Durham and Cobb, will find an entertaining and instructive way for Roy to immolate himself.

This he does. For like Shelton's other heroes, Roy is a purist. His quest is not necessarily for the best score--an enterprise that needs caution and compromise--but for that near unattainable ideal, the perfectly struck golf ball, which requires oneness with the universe. That a foolhardy opportunity to achieve that state arises on the last hole of the Open is the kind of bad dumb luck he's used to; this guy's been playing out of the existential rough all his life.

As he always does in comedy, Costner grants an irresistible gleam of gallantry to male mulishness. As the psychologist who can't help loving this foolish fellow, Rene Russo is both knowing and vulnerable, proving beyond a doubt that she is modern Hollywood's one true heiress to the screwball tradition. They make Tin Cup rattle very merrily. --R.S.