Maybe They Should Stray Off Course

Some members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team said last month that they wouldn’t accept President Clinton’s invitation to visit him at the White House before the Ryder Cup matches in England on Sept. 24-26 because they disagree with his economic program, though they have since reconsidered.

Hollis Stacy, an LPGA tour player, told Golf World that PGA Tour players are living in a fantasy world.

“They don’t have a clue about what’s fantasy and what’s reality, and that’s because most of them have never read a newspaper,” Stacy said. “They think real life is playing golf all day on perfect golf courses for millions of dollars. Real life is poor people who can’t afford to eat.”

Spaniard Marta Figueras-Dotti, an LPGA tour player, added that Americans don’t know how good they have it. “Tell them to talk to Seve (Ballesteros),” she said. “In Spain we pay 60% taxes and can’t get anyone to pick up the garbage.”

Trivia time: The late Jess Hill alternated with Earle Combs in left field for the New York Yankees in 1935. Who were the other outfielders?

Hidden art: Detroit barber James Slater, whose clients include some baseball stars, cringes to see his best work crammed beneath a baseball cap.

“Aw, man, it feels like someone ruining a great painting by Picasso or Michelangelo,” he said.

Lendl’s rut: Martina Navratilova thinks she knows why, at 36, she is still a formidable contender while Ivan Lendl, 33, seems to be in decline.

“The biggest thing I see is that he hasn’t changed his game at all,” Navratilova told Tennis magazine. “He just keeps playing the same way, and it’s like hitting your head against a wall.”

Come again? Headline in the San Francisco Examiner: “Young tosses gently.”

In his sleep?

Wait a minute: When interviewed by The Times, quarterback Jim Everett said: “I’m the best passer the Rams have ever had.”

Has Everett ever heard of Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield, who are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Or Roman Gabriel, who was the NFL’s most valuable player in 1969?

With thorns: After retiring as Washington’s football coach in the wake of Pacific 10 Conference sanctions, Don James arrived home one day and found 153 dozen roses, from a drive organized by a local radio station to salute each of his victories.

Said his wife, Carol: “We’re going to send the dead ones to the Pac-10.”

Worst of the worst: Sparky Anderson has been a major league manager since 1970 and won four National League pennants and two World Series with the Cincinnati Reds. He also remembers his worst team--the 1989 Detroit Tigers, who finished with a 59-103 record.

“That’s the worst baseball team I’ve seen since I’ve been in the major leagues,” Anderson said. “We had no talent, period. None. Zero.”

Trivia answer: George Selkirk and Ben Chapman.

Quotebook: Catfish Hunter, on former New York Yankee teammate Reggie Jackson: “He’d give you the shirt off his back. Of course, he’d call a press conference to announce it.”