Senior Tennis Looks for a Bit of Golf Magic

There’s no telling who was correct in the Ben Wright flap of last weekend, but if he said anything remotely close to what was reported--that lesbians on the tour are hurting women’s pro golf--Wright was wrong.

Nothing seems to be hurting women’s golf. Or men’s golf. Or senior golf. It’s all booming.

There’s even a 24-hour golf channel, for goodness’ sake.

And then there’s tennis.

There was a time when golf and tennis were considered equals.

Not anymore. Tennis, as a television attraction, has been aced by golf.

But maybe Jack Nicklaus, of all people, can pump some life back into tennis.

Well, not Nicklaus per se. But his Jack Nicklaus Productions ventures into tennis this weekend.

Nicklaus’ seven-year-old company has put together several successful made-for-TV golf events.

Now, in conjunction with Net Assets, a Jimmy Connors company, Jack Nicklaus Productions is staging “The Challenge,” a senior tennis event at Pebble Beach featuring Connors, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Guillermo Vilas.

Connors and Vilas play today in a match that will be televised, delayed, by Prime Sports at 8 tonight. McEnroe and Borg, who are 7-7 lifetime against each other, play Saturday on ABC, and the winners play Sunday on ABC. The weekend matches will be shown both days, delayed, at 3 p.m.

Terry Jastrow, the president of Jack Nicklaus Productions who doubles as ABC’s main golf producer, believes this may be the event that establishes “senior tennis” for players 35 and older.

“The Legends of Golf in Austin [Tex.] in 1978, won by Sam Snead, is the event that got the senior golf tour going,” Jastrow said. “We’re hoping this event will do the same for senior tennis.”

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Defending Wright: Colleagues at CBS simply don’t believe Wright made the comments that were attributed to him in a Delaware newspaper. One of them, Jim Nantz, on his syndicated CBS radio show this week, said he has worked with Wright for 10 years and, even in private, had never heard Wright say anything close to what was printed.

“Why would he say something to a total stranger that he’s never said to any of us?” Nantz asked.

Nantz also took certain media representatives to task for raking Wright over the coals without verifying whether he had said what he was supposed to have said.

CBS apparently has chosen to believe Wright. Otherwise, he would have been fired.

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Mr. Personality: The rap on Joe Montana as a prospective broadcaster, even before he signed on as a part-time studio host with NBC this week, was that he doesn’t have the personality for it.

But the Joe Montana who entertained sportswriters during a conference call Wednesday morning was glib, personable, witty and pleasant, and gave the impression he would handle broadcasting with the same ease he used to handle the two-minute drill.

No one asked about his reputation for blandness, but he explained it anyway.

“As a player, you always had to be careful when giving interviews to reporters as a group,” he said. “You may be having a blast in the locker room, kidding around and everything, but when it came time for a press conference, you’d change your demeanor, almost become monotone. You had to be aware that out there somewhere was a reporter looking to take advantage of any angle you might give him.”

Montana will work as a fill-in for Joe Gibbs when Gibbs has auto racing obligations. The schedule has Montana making only six appearances on “NFL Live” during the regular season, but he will work every week during the playoffs.

Montana said many times during his career he wasn’t interested in broadcasting after he retired as a player. What changed his mind?

“To be honest about it, I just never thought about studio work,” he said. “I just know I didn’t want to be a game commentator.”

TV-Radio Notes

Some people have been critical of the job Stu Lantz did filling in for Chick Hearn on Laker play-by-play last Friday, when bronchitis forced Hearn off the air at halftime. Hey, give Lantz a break. He had never done play by play and it’s not that easy, particularly considering that he was announcing for both television and radio.

Sometimes cable television is its own worst enemy. A number of callers to The Times last Friday complained that their cable system had cut off the end of the Chicago-Orlando NBA playoff game that night. It happened on some systems because, rather than have a live, paid human being on hand, the company simply set a timer to black out TNT’s signal at 7:30 because TNT’s Laker telecast had to be blacked out in Southern California. When the Bulls and Magic ran over, the game disappeared from some screens.

Then there was NBC last Sunday--cutting away from Phoenix-Houston early in the fourth quarter when it was a one-point game. The really bad part is that NBC and the NBA had planned it that way. They scheduled a tripleheader to begin at 10 a.m. and finish by 5 p.m. (8 p.m. in the East), meaning they were trying to squeeze three games into a seven-hour span. At least 7 1/2 are needed. Surely, someone could have come up with a better plan.

Channel 9 has found its Forum-promoted boxing to be a ratings winner, and the station has also been nominated for a local Emmy award for its coverage. The station has another Forum-promoted card tonight at 8. This one, in Stateline, Nev., features undefeated middleweights Lonnie Bradley and David Mendiz.

Jim McKay, 74, will miss ABC’s Preakness coverage Saturday because of open-heart surgery scheduled for today. Al Michaels will fill McKay’s role as the main host. . . . Channel 7 sportscaster Todd Donoho, for the third time, will serve as host of the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital Golf Classic, a charity event, Saturday at Valencia Country Club. . . . Stan Spiro, longtime general manager of KMPC during its heyday, was honored Thursday night with the Southern California Broadcasters Assn.’s lifetime achievement award. Former KMPC colleague Steve Bailey made the presentation at a dinner in Beverly Hills.