Here’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say again:  My money is on Tiger.

 

Okay, that’s sort of metaphorical, because I don’t actually wager any money with a bookie or anything.  I learned a long time ago that whenever I get the itch to gamble, I might as well save myself a lot of time and aggravation by just tossing that money out the car window.

 

Still, if I was a betting man, I’d be betting on Tiger to win his 5^th Masters this week.  Count me among the legion of skeptics who never thought Tiger would fight and will his way back from the brink to where he is today.  His swing looks better than it has in years, his confidence seems to be restored and his personal life is at not the source of embarrassment and ridicule.

 

Come on, the guy has won three times already this year and we’re not even out of April.  He might not be the Tiger to a dozen years ago, but the Tiger of the moment has reclaimed No. 1 in the world.

 

The pressure to win, of course, is on.  The chaos in his personal life, the drought in the majors, the need to get back to winning the big ones if he is ever going to catch Jack Nicklaus, is all coming to a head this week in Augusta.  If he wins, it will be great for him and great for golf.  If he fizzles, or flubs it on the weekend, the air will go out his whole campaign to restore his old life.

 

Truth be told, I like the Tiger of now better than the Tiger of that earlier era.  He’s got a few more miles on him now, and with that comes some perspective, maturity and wisdom.  Really, the scandal and career detour has served to make him and us realize he’s human.

 

Anyway, I’m pulling for him.  If he can’t win, my backup choice is for Phil to win his 4th green jacket, which would tie him with Tiger.  Damn, wouldn’t either guy winning be a great day for golf?

I am very pleased to announce that my 2013 golf season has officially begun, or technically, is about to.  My first round of the season will be this Saturday, as the guest of a friend at Hidden Creek GC at the Jersey Shore.

 

With any luck, I will get out to hit a bucket of balls before Saturday, rust on the swing being what it is.

 

I began my season yesterday, as I always do, with the ritualistic bringing out of the clubs.  They spent most of the winter in the basement, although when the PGA Tour season cranked up in Hawaii in January, I did do a little chipping and putting on the carpet in front of the TV, addictions being what they are.

 

The ritualistic bringing out of the clubs involves dusting them off, followed by a full inspection.  Several of my irons still had mud caked on them from my final round of 2012 on a wet, chilly day in December.   I filled the sink with scalding water and suds and went to work with a stiff-bristled brush.

 

I don’t know about you but I also start each new season with a thorough scrubbing of my grips.  It’s amazing how hot water, suds and scrubbing can revitalize grips that have turned dry and slippery.

 

The grip on my driver was a bit worn so I took it down to my basement shop and put on a new grip, adding an extra layer of tape on the shaft.  If you don’t re-grip your on clubs, I highly recommend you learn to do so.  It’s easy, not to mention much cheaper and faster than sending them out.

 

Next, I purged my bag of accumulated crap and crud, such as a small white towel that had managed to end up stuffed into the bottom of bag, where it had wrapping itself around the grips.  Nothing is more important than going through the little valuables pouch where I keep ball markers and do-dads.  For years, I marked my ball with a coins I picked up over the years at the British Open.  These days, I favor those magnetic markers that you clip to the bill of your cap.  I now have a colorful collection of those little interchangeable markers.

 

While I was at it, I put a handful of tees in the bag and put a fresh 9-volt battery in my range finder.  I bought five dozen balls on sale at the end of last season, so I’m good to go orb-wise.

 

I do not plan any major club changes for ’13.  My driver (TaylorMade) is finally cooperating (knock on wood), and my irons (TaylorMade) are more forgiving than I could possibly ask.  Last year, my big club acquisition was a couple of new wedges (Titleist), 56 and 60 degrees, and I still like them both.  I know carry two hybrids (Titleist), 19 and 21 degrees.  My longest iron is my 5.

 

The big question mark, as always, is my putter.  Putters and putting in general hate me.   Actually, putters and putting mock me, play with me, like a cat amusing itself batting around a ball of yarn.  Seriously, when I pull my putter out of the bag and walk toward the green, I can feel my sphincter tightening with each step, even on the rare occasion that I am facing a mere tap-in.  My regular golf buddies find it hilarious.

 

Currently, my plan is to start the season with the same putter I ended ’12 with – a heel-shafted Cleveland mallet.  I do this knowing full well that Mr. Cleveland could fail me, betray, humiliate me at any time, joining a long line of putters that have failed me, betrayed me, humiliated me.  When that happens – it is only a matter of time – Mr. Cleveland will be cast out of my bag and into the basement to collect dust with my 20-odd putters of all makes and models.  I will pick a new (old) one from the collection and the cycle of love and betrayal will begin anew.

 

One of the big changes I’m expecting to make for ’13 is a new head cover for my driver.  My sister down in Raleigh has taken up knitting and she has promised to knit me a new and colorful head cover.  (No pressure, Jane, but my old head cover is starting to unravel.)  Her first project for me was a scarf, which I mistook for comforter for my bed when I took it out of the box.  I assured her it would be the first thing I pack if I ever go to Antarctic.

 

So, anyway, I’m ready.  Let the season begin.

I’ve never been big on April Fool’s jokes and neither was anybody else in my family.  In fact, the only one that comes to mind was when I was in grade school.

 

I distinctly remember waking up one morning and seeing my father sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at me.

 

"School’s cancelled," he said enthusiastically.  "It’s snowing!"

 

"Really?" I said, bolting upright. "Snowing?"  I don’t know which excited me more: no school or the prospect of spending the day sledding.

 

Then, of course, it hit me that we lived in North Carolina and spring was already busting out all over.  It probably didn’t snow a half-dozen times in my entire boyhood, and even it did, it was rarely more than an inch or two and it was melted within a day or two, tops. I just checked and today’s high in my old hometown is going to be 73.

 

Speaking of busting out, that’s exactly what my father did – busted out laughing.  "April Fools."

 

I sank back into my bed, bummed.

When I tune into Golf Channel, it’s a pretty safe bet I’m looking for golf, not political insights or snarky commentary, be it liberal or conservative.

 

In fact, I watch Golf Channel precisely to get away from my too-heavy TV diet of that stuff.   When a controversial political topic is dominating the news,  I can waste entire evenings flipping back and forth between MSNBC and Fox News to see who can out-crazy each other.

 

Yet there I was last night, planted in my easy chair, ready to watch the latest installment of Feherty. When I saw that the hour-long interview was with Jack Welch, the legendary retired CEO of General Electric, I thought it was a little odd.  I mean, I know Welch is an up-from-nothing success story, an avid golfer and a member of Augusta National, among God only knows how many other elite clubs.  But an entire episode of Feherty? (Photos from the interview)

 

I squirmed a little early on, during Feherty’s opening segment, when he said that these days Welch "loves tweaking the noses and tugging on the coats of people he believes are taking America down the wrong path...good evening, Mr. President."

 

Okay, what is this, Sean Hannity?  If I wanted Sean Hannity, I would have tuned in Sean Hannity.  For the record, I never want Sean Hannity.

 

It wasn’t long into the interview before the conversation turned to how "America has too many people in the wagon and not enough people pulling the wagon."  Suddenly, I’m starting to feel like I’m watching that secretly-taped video of Mitt Romney dissing the 47 percent.   All that’s missing is the grainy video and the sound of tinkling glasses.

 

Did I mention that the interview was taking place in Welch’s very comfortable looking home in very comfortable West Palm Beach?

 

Soon enough, Feherty brought up that famous "tweet" Welch sent to his 1.4 million Twitter followers back in September, shortly before the presidential election, when the government reported that national unemployment had dropped from 8.3 percent to 7.8.  Good news for President Obama and the Democrats; bad news, obviously, for Romney and the Republicans.

 

Welch’s tweet, to be exact, was:

 

Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers

 

(Here is the whole string of Welch’s tweets from that time).

 

Feherty asked Welch what the reaction had been to his Obama-bashing tweet.  Liberals had attacked him from all sides, said Welch; on the other hand, he had received a standing ovation when he walked into a restaurant in Florida.

 

A "standing O" in a restaurant in West Palm Beach, where Welch no doubt proceeded to sit down to dine in peace and splendor among people who look and think and live just like him.  I’m betting he didn’t get a "standing O" from the restaurant staff back in the kitchen.

 

Anyway, don’t get me started.  I tune into Golf Channel to get away from political huffing and puffing.

 

 

 

When NBC’s Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller welcomed Arnold Palmer into the booth at Bay Hill a few moments ago, Hicks joked that it was good to feel Arnie’s handshake again.

 

I totally agree – you never forget Arnold Palmer’s handshake.

 

It’s not that Arnie is one of those bone-crusher guys, not at all.   His is just a firm, friendly, manly handshake.  Two quick pumps and he releases.

 

What makes it so unforgettable is Arnie’s hand itself: it’s big and strong and as padded as a major league catcher’s mitt.  The fingers he wraps around your hand are as thick and beefy as sausages.  You feel like you’ve fallen into the embrace of a mama bear or something.

 

And I don’t care who you are, or what you can or cannot do for him, Arnie looks you in the eye, smiles and says it’s good to see you.  It’s one of the reasons Arnold Palmer is one of the great ambassadors the game has ever had.

 

 

Again, I come to you with a non-golf blog topic, but hey, when former porn star Traci Lords pops up in the news, as she did a couple of days ago, I started thinking about our time together.

 

Like my recent blog post about interviewing Dear Abby, my encounter with the then-luscious Lords dates back my pre-golf writer life, when I profiled stars and celebrities of all stripes for The Philadelphia Inquirer.  That’s what I was doing in 1989, when I was dispatched to Baltimore, where Lords was making her first legit post-porn career movie.  It was a 1950s period comedy called Cry-Baby, and it was directed by the film auteur John Waters, who was giving Lords her first big break.

 

What thrust Lords into the news this week was the rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, in which two high star school football players were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl.  A revolting rape case became even more revolting and notorious when high school kids posted photos of the victimized girl in the internet.

 

Lords, now in her 40s and long gone from porn, says her life was changed forever when she, too, was raped in her native Steubenville, when she was a 10-year-old named Norma Kuzma.

 

If you’ll recall, Lords rocked the porn industry in the mid-80s, when she announced that every porn film she had ever appeared in – and there were a bunch of them – were actually made when she was 15, 16 and 17 years old -- underage.  Her entire body of work, so to speak, was quickly yanked from the shelves, except for one film, Traci, I love You,  which was shot two days after she turned 18.

 

Naturally, for the sake of investigative journalism and thorough preparation for the interview, I made it my business to come up with a copy of Traci, I Love You...Yowza!

 

When I interviewed her, Lords had turned 21 only three weeks earlier and she was still very hot, hot, hot.  It was early afternoon when I arrived at her hotel in Baltimore, along with the movie’s publicist, but Lords was only then waking up.  That’s because they’d were in the midst of shooting night scenes at a park in Baltimore, and the actors and crew were working from sundown to sunup.  Her hotel suite was dark, quiet, almost eerie.

 

Here’s a snippet from my story in the Inquirer: 

 

"Hello," says a cheerful Lords, as the door opens.

She is a vision. Tiny, 5 feet tops. Long, straight blond hair that falls onto her shoulders. A cute, almost childish face. And even though the blinds are drawn, who could help but notice that nature has been generous to this young woman in many places and ways.

Packed, as she is, into a tight spandex top and long flowing skirt, it is also abundantly clear why she was the rage of the porn industry as a mere teen. But it's also obvious that she's very young. What smut king couldn't have seen that this girl was underage?

"Well," says the publicist, excusing himself, "I'll leave you two alone."

Lords stands in the center of the hotel room and smiles, almost shyly.

"Can I get you some Coke?" she asks.

Ah, excuse me?

"Yeah. Coke, 7-Up, ice water?"

Ohhh, Coke. Sure.

 

You’re welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re headed to Phillies spring training camp and wondering about where to play golf in the Clearwater area, here are suggestions from a golf writer friend of mine in nearby Safety Harbor:

 

As for recommendations, a very good semi-private pubic fee course is in a small town about 15 miles north of Clearwater. The course is Fox Hollow and located in New Port Richey. If your friend does not mind driving a little distance, i would recommend it.

 

 A little bit closer is the Belleview Biltmore, right in Clearwater. Nothing great, but OK... If money is not a real object, there's always Innisbrook Resort, where the PGA Tour event will be next week... They've got about 5 courses there, so some are better and more expensive than others.

 

 Landsbrook is another daily fee course, about 6-7 miles just north of the Phillies complex. it's a good course for the fee. Actually, as I think about it, i'd say Fox Hollow and Landsbrook are probably the best for the price in the immediate area of Clearwater.