Is This Tennis, or Is the Game Meant to Be Played in Courts?

Quick, get Madeleine Albright back here pronto, because if these Golf Club Wars get any hotter, they are going to be melting graphite.

By this afternoon, Callaway Golf’s amended complaint against Orlimar Golf is expected to have been filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, alleging patent infringement and false and deceptive advertising.

Callaway believes that Orlimar, its primary competitor in the sales of shallow-faced fairway woods, is making the Carlsbad company look bad in ads and isn’t telling the truth. It’s the latest legal skirmish for Callaway, which last week settled a lawsuit against Spalding Sports after accusing the ball-maker of misusing Callaway trademarks and brand reputations.

But Callaway was only warming up for the main event--taking on Orlimar and its highly successful TriMetal clubs.

What’s at stake? Only money. Orlimar’s sales have risen from $1.5 million in 1997 to $68 million in 1998--but still represent only about one-tenth of Callaway’s 1998 sales of $697.6 million.

According to Callaway, Orlimar’s robot-testing procedure was misleading and the results false.

Then there is the Ted Tryba tempest. Tryba, a journeyman, shot a 61 at the CBS-televised Nissan Open while carrying a bag that had an Orlimar logo. However, Tryba did not have a single Orlimar club in the bag. By last week, he did--a three-wood.

Ely Callaway took issue with Orlimar’s advertising efforts.

“The most misleading campaign I have ever seen in any field in my young life,” said Callaway, 79.

It is Callaway’s contention that when television viewers see a player who has an equipment company’s logo on his golf bag, they naturally assume the player is using that company’s clubs. Callaway, which has 45 pros under contract, requires its players to use at least 10 Callaway clubs. The exception is Paul Azinger, who uses only Callaway irons and has a bag that states that fact.

In the meantime, Orlimar says the whole issue is blown way out of proportion.

“[Ely Callaway] is just blowing smoke,” Ed Dolinar, Orlimar’s co-chairman, told GolfWeek. “We’re making it pretty tough for him out there . . . and I think there’s a little panic.”

But Callaway said his intentions are straightforward and simple.

“We don’t want to mislead the public,” he said. “And we don’t think anyone else should, either.”

LOWDOWN ON THE ‘SHOWDOWN’

News item: Tiger Woods and David Duval announce they will play each other in a $1.5-million match-play event, live on ABC in prime time on the East Coast.

Reaction: Uh, haven’t Woods and Duval spent the last year saying there’s no rivalry . . . that is until somebody throws $1.5 million at them.

Oh, now I’ve got it. Just add money, et voila, instant rivalry. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with the top two golfers in the world going head to head, especially when there’s $400,000 of the total purse earmarked for charity. It’s just that all those words from the Woods and Duval camps denying the existence of anything even remotely resembling a rivalry are ringing sort of hollow right now.

“The press had kind of built that [rivalry] up,” Woods said.

Well, in that case, please forward my finder’s fee.

At least Duval had reservations about the deal . . . before he agreed to it, of course.

“I thought what might happen is that it might focus too much attention on the two of us when I actually think of this as a vehicle to expose golf to a wider audience,” Duval said.

How much of a wider audience we will find out. The event will be played Aug. 2 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, with Al Michaels the host. It already has a name--Showdown at Sherwood. You can see why. Presumably, Millionaires at Medinah was ruled out quickly.

Howard Katz of ABC Sports said the show, which will be televised in Los Angeles from 5 to 8 p.m., would preempt Monday night summer reruns on the East Coast. Katz said he thinks the Showdown will not suffer a meltdown in the ratings.

On a conference call last week, Woods did his best to try to make the thing sound exciting. Woods said he has a plan to prepare for Duval.

“Get the gloves out, hit the punching bag,” Woods said.

Meanwhile, Jack Nicklaus weighed in on the Woods-Duval duel. Nicklaus said he had a lot of similar offers to play Arnold Palmer and Johnny Miller one-against-one, but he always declined.

Said Nicklaus: “We all stayed away because we thought the focus should be on tournament golf, not individuals.”

THEN CALL RAWLS

Sometimes you have to wonder about the LPGA, which continues to baffle despite having more great players than possibly at any other time in its history.

Take, for instance, next week’s first-time event at Austin, Texas, the Philips Invitational Honoring Harvey Penick.

Consider: The event is on network television (CBS). It brings a new sponsor, Philips Electronics, into the fold. It is the only LPGA event in Texas. It honors Penick, who taught LPGA Hall of Famers such as Kathy Whitworth, Betsy Rawls and Mickey Wright. The tournament is the brainchild of Jack Nicklaus Productions, which has included LPGA players and awarded money equal to what the men receive in off-season events such as the Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge and the Diners Club.

Now, guess which players are not in the tournament: Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam, Se Ri Pak, Dottie Pepper. The top player entered is Juli Inkster.

INSIDE CARLOS’ BAG

In case you were wondering, Carlos Franco won last week’s Compaq Classic using a Callaway Hawkeye driver, a Callaway Steelhead two-wood (with an Aldila graphite shaft), Callaway X-12 irons (with True Temper Dynamic Gold steel shafts), an Odyssey Tri-Force 2 putter, a Titleist Professional ball and wearing Footjoy shoes with Softspikes XP cleats.

Whew! (Somebody actually keeps track of this stuff.)

TRIPLE PLAY

For what it’s worth, there are three golf courses in Franco’s home country of Paraguay.

RATING THE RATINGS

Are the TV networks getting rich in the first year of their $400-million deal with the PGA Tour?

Not with this rating: Up 3% to a 3.1.

Ratings on golf on all the networks is unchanged from a year ago at 3.0.

DIVE ON IN

How fast is that PGA Tour money pool filling up? Way fast.

After 19 weeks of tournaments, nine players have already won at least $1 million. There were only nine players who finished with more than $1 million on the 1996 money list.

NICKLAUS UPDATE

He hasn’t played since the U.S. Senior Open last July at Riviera, but Nicklaus is making his return from hip replacement surgery when he plays in next week’s Senior PGA Tour event at Avondale, Pa.

Nicklaus, 59, played this week at Muirfield Village, his course in Dublin, Ohio, and felt he was ready to try his first tournament since he had surgery on his left hip in January.

Nicklaus missed his first Masters in 40 years, but he is expected to play all four majors in 2000--at Augusta National, the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, the British Open at St. Andrews and the PGA at Valhalla.

Nicklaus, who has won 18 majors, won six times at Augusta, the 1972 U.S. Open at Pebble, the 1970 and 1978 British Opens at St. Andrews and designed the course at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky.

CASEY MARTIN UPDATE

No decision is expected for some time on the PGA Tour’s appeal of the ruling that allows Casey Martin to ride a cart. Last week in San Francisco, tour lawyers asked a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to force Martin to walk instead of ride, which he has been allowed to do since winning his case last year in Eugene, Ore.

On the course this year, Martin has not been so successful. He is No. 43 on the Nike Tour money list with $17,733 in nine events.

KEEP YOUR GUARD UP

Hale Irwin on the Senior PGA Tour: “There is no new guard out here. We have the old guard and the older guard.”

BIRDIES, BOGEYS, PARS

Woods will help open Target House in Memphis, Tenn., on Monday. Woods and his Tiger Woods Foundation sponsored the construction and furnishing of the library at Target House, which houses long-term patients of St. Jude Children’s Hospital and their families.

American Golf won Golf Digest’s Junior Development Award.

Chip Beck’s nine-under total at the Compaq Classic, where he tied for 35th, was his best in three years, since the 1996 Buick Open.

Jack Nicholson, Bill Murray, Joe Pesci, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Gretzky, Marcus Allen, Cheech Marin, Leslie Nielsen, Andy Garcia and Randy Quaid are expected to play in the Casey Lee Ball Classic charity tournament Monday at Sherwood Country Club. The event benefits pediatric kidney disease research at the Mattell UCLA Childrens Hospital. Details: (818) 753-5333.

The Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Support Group tournament will be held June 25 at Brookside Golf Club in Pasadena. The event benefits a permanent Emergency Operations Center. Details: (818) 248-3464.