His Putter Is Funny Looking, but Ogle Gets the Last Laugh

Australian Brett Ogle can’t understand why more golfers, especially professionals, haven’t switched to the long putter, as he did.

“I think they’re ashamed to try something that looks odd,” Ogle told Mark Soltau of the San Francisco Examiner after winning the Hawaiian Open. “I see older guys struggling big-time, but they’re too worried about their pride.

“I’m not traditional. I worry about me and feeding my family.”

Add long putter: Ogle, who also won at Pebble Beach last year, said he decided to switch after taking four putts from 15 feet on the first hole of the PGA Championship in Toledo.

“I had tears in my eyes,” he recalled. “I couldn’t get the putter back.”

He switched to a long putter the next week and one-putted six of the first nine greens.

Trivia time: USC has produced six NBA coaches. Who are they?

Pass the ball: When the Clippers’ Bob Weiss was coach of the Atlanta Hawks, he had a bunch of shot-happy players, but on one occasion a display of teamwork brought a victory. To which Weiss said:

“On offense, we moved the ball extremely well. For a group of guys that at one time would rather pass kidney stones than a basketball, it’s amazing.”

Hunch bet: Seles was a winner in Melbourne this week.

No, not Monica Seles, who is still recovering after being stabbed last year and has skipped the Australian Open she won the last three years.

The winning Seles is a harness racer that won the fifth race at Monday’s trotters meeting at Melbourne’s Yarra Glen course.

Is it Erik, or Erik? Pity the announcers at basketball games involving Fox Chapel High of Pittsburgh.

Erik Nelson, a 6-foot-7 senior center, is averaging 25 points per game. Erik D. Nelson, a 6-foot-4 junior forward, is averaging 19. The two are not related, but there is another Nelson, Erik’s brother Nate, a 6-4 sophomore forward, on the team.

Add confusion: In Peterborough, N.H., when Contoocook Valley High girls’ basketball coach John Reitnauer yells to his starters, he uses first names--out of necessity. Four of them have the same last name.

The Jutras sisters--twin seniors Christine and Michelle, junior Natalie and sophomore Veronica--make up 80% of the starting lineup.

The combination works: The Cougars have a 9-1 record after going 17-2 last year.

Special rice: Tennis player Kimiko Date of Japan likes to eat Japanese food wherever she goes.

The 10th-seeded player in the women’s singles at the Australian Open takes a number of rice dishes that only need boiling whenever she travels.

“I know some Japanese people like to copy other cultures because they think it’s cool, but I don’t like that,” Date said. “If you are Japanese, you should be Japanese everywhere.”

Trivia answer: Mack Calvin, Bob Kloppenburg, Alex Hannum, Bill Sharman, Tex Winter and Paul Westphal.

Quotebook: Philadelphia 76er Coach Fred Carter, on 7-6 rookie Shawn Bradley: “In three years, he’s going to be so good that people are going to forget he had a learning period.”