Officials Make Short Work of Idea

Was it baseball or golf? Whatever, there was a shorts stop at the PGA Championship at Valhalla.

The caddies for Tom Lehman and Steve Jones started the first round wearing shorts, but PGA officials stopped them on the second tee and told them to change into long pants.

Why? Tournament rules prohibit male caddies from wearing shorts.

But both Andy Martinez, who caddies for Lehman, and Scott Jones, who caddies for his brother, were so concerned about the heat and humidity that they decided to wear shorts anyway.

“I thought common sense would mean something,” Martinez said. “I guess not. Isn’t that what you have a brain for?”

Lehman and Jones were in a group with Nick Faldo, whose caddie, Fanny Sunesson, is allowed to wear shorts because she is female.

In the afternoon, the pro tour caddies’ association presented a letter to Jim Awtrey, chief executive officer of the PGA of America, asking him to rescind the policy. The caddies hinted at legal action if someone in their group became ill as a result of the rule against shorts.

Awtrey said the rule would remain intact this week.

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Meanwhile, Jeff “Squeeky” Medlen was back on the job as Nick Price’s caddy. Price said Medlen uses his job as a diversion from the leukemia that was diagnosed in July.

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Jack Nicklaus began his 35th PGA Championship and the 148th consecutive major for which he has been eligible.

He shot a 77, five over par, and wasn’t happy about it--basically because he happens to be the guy who designed Valhalla.

“This is one of my favorite golf courses to play on . . . that’s why I am doubly upset with myself,” he said. “I want to do well and be part of this, not hack it around like I did today.”

Nicklaus, 56, has shot only six worse scores in 123 rounds in the PGA Championship, which he has won four times.

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At the start of the year, John Cook hadn’t won in four years, but victories at Memphis, Tenn., and New England in the last two months changed that in a hurry.

Cook, 38, was so upset about his game that he was two days away from giving it up in March.

Then Cook went to Florida to work with his mentor, Ken Venturi, and began to feel a lot better.

“Things started to happen,” said Cook, who shot a first-round 69. “It wasn’t so much mechanical. It was just refreshing my memory of the good things that I’ve done and the good things that I’m still able to do.

“I mean, all the players out here, I mean everybody goes through those bad cycles. I was on the bottom curve of a pretty bad cycle.”