MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / December 2, 2000

My friend in Virginia called me the other night and said the PGA of America had just issued a new rule for golf.

It seems that if you hit a bad shot (something I know a lot about), if you yell “Gore” while the ball is still in flight, you are allowed to place the ball where you thought it should have gone. You can keep doing this until you get afavorable result.

Dang, I thought he was going to tell me that the PGA had made it the higher the score, the better. There goes my chance to make the Tour this year.For being the beginning of December, when greens in part of the country are white, golf has certainly been in the news a lot lately.

Starting with Tiger Woods, because much of golf today starts with him, he may have a point in asking about more control over his marketing rights. Golfwas already on the upswing before he joined the Tour but Woods made that swing go much faster and higher than could have been expected.

And it’s not like Woods was asking for a slice of the Tour’s pie (a.k.a,television money). With the impact he has had on the game, Woods probablyevery right to pull a Alex Rodriguez and ask for the moon. (Or at least a tonof money, an office in the stadium and a private jet. Who does Rodriguezthink he is – an owner or a coach mentioned for the Alabama job?) Then there is the fact that we are in the middle of the “silly season” that fun time where the already fabulously rich go out and try to get even fabulously richer while trying to avoid overplaying and screwing up their game for the real deal.

What kind of golf do you want? Trust me, the silly season will provide it.

Stroke play, match play, best ball, men against women, men and women against seniors, skins games, you want it, you got.

The grandfather of all silly season events and the one that is perhaps the hokiest (apologies to Virginia Tech), is the Skins Game. This year’s matchfeatured Fred Couples, Colin Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia and Vijay Singh. Trynot to get overly excited. Doesn’t quite match up with the old Palmer-Nicklaus-Watson-Player foursome does it? There is also the Grand Slam of Golf which features the winner of the four majors that previous season. With the way Woods is playing, look for thename to be changed to the Tiger Woods Invitational. Of course, with the wayWoods is playing, that term also fits the PGA Tour.

Not to worry, the regular season is about to start up again in January. And ifit seems the 2000 season just ended, it did. Only the presidential electionand the NBA playoffs seem longer.

There is nothing silly about another tournament going on right now, however, the PGA’s Qualifying School. You want drama? Try watching a player whoneeds to sink a five-foot downhill putt on the final hole in order to get his playing card. I’d rather watch that than some multimillionaire out to collect afew more thousand in a skins match.

On the local scene, Riverside Academy and Belle Terre Country Club were awarded the 2001 Class 2A state boys golf tournament Wednesday. If asmuch effort is put into the event as the Riverside golfers put into their games that made them the state champions last season, it should be quite a success.

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