WORTH NOTING ON TV

* SATURDAY

Women's Open (NBC, 3-6 p.m., EDT): You can make a million dollars playing golf - women's golf. That's the purse (recently raised from $850,000) for the 50th US Women's Open Championship at the Broadmoor Golf Course in Colorado Springs, Colo.

But you have to be able to beat the top players in the world, including defending champion Patty Sheehan, who's expected to compete for her third Open title, as NBC offers Third Round coverage.

Two-time champion Betsy King and past champions Meg Mallon, Lauri Merten, and Laura Davies are also expected to be in contention.

* SUNDAY

The Real Rasputin (The History Channel, 9-10 p.m.): If you watch old movies on TV, your impression of Rasputin - the ''mad monk'' - may have come from the great John Barrymore's powerful but slimy evocation of him in the 1932 film ''Rasputin and the Empress.''

The image is typical of popular notions of this charismatic figure who held such a sway over the czar's family - especially as charismatic healer and confidant to the czarina - in Russia during the early 1900s. He was lecherous, drunken, perhaps insane and, some say, a murderer. He has even been blamed for the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

Hosted by Roger Mudd, this documentary doesn't exactly make a Boy Scout of him, but it does attempt to correct some false impressions, including the charge of murder. The program ends up with a creature not quite so vile as his reputation suggests.

The production employs lots of traditional archival material, but its reporters were the first to travel to Pokrovskoye, Rasputin's birthplace, known as ''Marsh behind the Tartars.'' All kinds of supernatural powers were said to have been practiced by hunters and other residents, and the show searches for sources of Rasputin's ''powers.'' In addition, interviews are offered with survivors from the czar's court who agreed to speak on camera for the first time.

Please check local listings for these programs.

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