It’s Time to Talk Some Trash About Those Pro Golfers

Sam Smith in the Chicago Tribune: “I love golf. It’s golfers whom I hate.

“Especially professional golfers, and the supposed keepers of the hoary traditions of the game who now use irons with no iron in them, woods with no wood in them and drivers with heads bigger than garbage-can covers.

“Garbage, by the way, also describes their lame, supercilious excuses for denying Casey Martin a chance to play on the PGA Tour.”

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Trivia time: Other than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Gary Payton, who is the only Pacific 10 Conference player to score 50 or more points in a game?

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Nah-what-oh? It isn’t a topic likely to come up in dinner conversations, but one of the questions at the Winter Olympics in Nagano is : How do you pronounce the name of the city?

Is it NAH-gah-no or Nah-GAH-no? The answer is--either.

There is one consensus: Nah-gah-NO is a definite no-no.

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Wah! wah! Green Bay’s Eugene Robinson, as heard by NFL Films on the sideline of Super Bowl loss to Denver:

“We’re playing the Indianapolis Colts! This team is not better than us! They’re not even good and we’re letting them beat us!

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Notable absentees: John McClain in the Houston Chronicle: “Quarterbacks John Elway and Brett Favre should be heavily fined for stiffing the fans who worship the NFL, to the point of selling out Aloha Stadium every year for the poorest excuse of an all-star game in professional sports.”

Elway reportedly has a sore shoulder, while Favre has a sore knee, prompting McClain to comment: “Which he must have injured on the 14th tee at the Palm Springs course he played last week.”

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Direction mistake: From a USC TV commercial: “Coach Henry Bibby is taking the Trojans to new heights in the Pac-10.” With a 3-6 conference record?

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Expendable: San Jose Shark Coach Daryl Sutter, after disgruntled defenseman Marty McSorley asked for a trade: “If someone wants him, they can have him.”

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Sounds scary: Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Tribune: “Turkish police arrested 113 soccer fans over the weekend and confiscated 121 knives, scimitars and kebab cleavers.

“Kebab cleavers? “

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Looking back: On this day in 1954, Bevo Francis of Rio Grande College scored 113 points in a 134-91 victory over Hillsdale. Francis broke his own record for small colleges, 84, set two weeks earlier against Alliance College.

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Trivia answer: Hank Luisetti of Stanford with 50 against Duquesne on Jan. 1, 1938, when the league was known as the Pacific Coast Conference. Luisetti was a three-time All-American.

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And finally: Chicago Bull Coach Phil Jackson, on speculation that Michael Jordan might decide to be a player-coach next season:

“It’s a possibility. He’d probably be a better player than coach. But he’d probably get the job done.

The Bulls’ Ron Harper, on the same subject: “He’s the coach now.”