When She Took Up the Game, She Thought It Was Easy Aces

Who says golf isn’t an easy game?

Brenna Colt might be excused if she couldn’t understand all the fuss over how to make a proper golf swing. The third time she ever played, Brenna made not one, but two holes in one. She was playing with Nancy Rix, a neighbor from Murietta, on Lawrence Welk’s three-par course in Escondido.

“When we teed off, we didn’t even have a scorecard,” Colt said, “but when I made an ace on the second hole, I ran back and got one and told my instructor (pro Cachi Trejo) about it. I made the other one on the fifth hole, and when we finished the nine, he said to Nancy, ‘So she made a hole in one, eh?’

“And Nancy said, ‘No, she got two!’ ”

For the record, Brenna used a seven-iron on the 95-yard No. 2 and an eight-iron on the 88-yard No. 5.

Holes in one (cont.): When she went out for an 18-hole round that afternoon on the longer executive course, Colt learned how tough the game really is. “I shot about a 70-62,” she said. “I went from one extreme to the other.”

Trivia time: How many UCLA basketball players have participated in four Final Four tournaments?

One man’s opinion: New York Met pitcher Frank Viola, on the loss of Darryl Strawberry to the Dodgers, told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook: “I’d like to tell you I thought Darryl always played hard, but I can’t say that. I don’t think he always put forth that effort, and when he didn’t, that seemed to rub off on everyone else.”

Added first baseman Dave Magadan: “People always wanted to give Darryl too much credit for our success.”

Long shot: When Buick dealers in Atlanta decided to offer a car to anyone who could make two of three shots from halfcourt, they thought they had a foolproof promotion. Three spectators tried at halftime of a Hawks-Chicago Bulls game.

Two of them didn’t even hit the rim, but Blaire Bugajski made his first and third shots to take home the 1991 Regal. What the promoters didn’t know was that Bugajski was a former Illinois Wesleyan player who had a tryout with the Washington Bullets four years earlier.

“I can always use a car,” he said.

Cheating: Senior PGA Tour golfer Bob Brue recalls playing with an amateur who was so used to cheating on every hole that when he made a hole in one, he wrote down “0” on his card.

Casey’s logic: When the New York Mets were selecting players in the 1962 National League expansion draft, Casey Stengel plucked catcher Hobie Landrith from the San Francisco Giants as his first pick. Asked why, Casey answered matter-of-factly: “You gotta start with a catcher, because if you don’t, you’ll have all passed balls.”

Trivia answer: One. Ralph Drollinger, 1973-76.

Quotebook: Andy Van Slyke of the Pittsburgh Pirates, on salary gripes of fellow players: “Every ballplayer should have to work at a Chrysler or General Motors plant to see just what they have in baseball.”