Look for Woman Driver

The big day is two weeks away, but Lee Brandon’s competitive juices already are beginning to boil.

As defending women’s champion in the World Long Drive Championships, all eyes will be on her and opponents will be gunning for her.

But Brandon, 40, said she isn’t nervous. She said she’s just happy to be competing and something tells you it isn’t some tired cliche.

Brandon is happy to be alive.

During her junior year in high school in 1979, Brandon nearly died after she accidentally put her left arm through a glass window. The glass sliced open an artery and nearly severed her arm at the elbow.

Brandon’s heart stopped on the operating table as doctors worked to reattach the arm, but they managed to restart it and saved her arm.

That’s the same arm she used to launch a drive 291 yards 3 inches last October to win the long drive title by more than six yards.

“I never would have thought I could win this thing,” said Brandon, who at 5 feet 11 with golden hair has earned the nickname “Blonde Bomber.” “Heck, I used to make fun of golfers.”

Before the accident, Brandon was an aspiring Olympian. She was nationally ranked in the discus and shotput, but it took seven years to regain feeling in her arm and she gave up dreams of competing.

She turned to coaching and in 1988 became an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the New York Jets. She was the first female strength coach in the NFL.

After that, Brandon started a private strength and conditioning practice in Brentwood and took up golf to help a client in 1997. She took lessons but didn’t own a driver until her instructor suggested she try the long drive competition.

“He was like, ‘The woman who won last year hit it 249 yards, you can do that with a four-wood,’ ” Brandon said.

And thus, at 39, Brandon once again became a competitive athlete.

“It’s funny how the universe twists things around,” she said. “I mean, my life as a competitor was over at age 17. I felt like I lost my life and my goals as I knew them. I achieved a lot of joy in coaching and creating champions, but never thought I’d be one again. How many women at age 39 think about competing in anything?”

Brandon is serious about defending her title. She has trained hard over the last year, adding seven to eight mph to her swing speed, which is now 111-117 mph. (Tiger Woods is about 125). Her career long drive in competition is 327 yards, but she says she has hit one 347 on the course.

Still, Brandon, a 15 handicap, doesn’t want to put too much pressure on herself to win at the finals Oct. 16-19 in Mesquite, Nev. She has only one goal.

“I just want to hit six balls flush,” she said. “A lot of competitors are out there swinging for the fences, I’m just trying to hit the ball. Other than that, I’m just going to enjoy being there and being alive.”

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Springing Into Action

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, which governs the rules of golf everywhere but the U.S. and Mexico, announced Tuesday that it would limit the spring-like effect on drivers at the British Open next year, bringing the British in line with the three other majors.

The coefficient of restitution, a measurement of how quickly a ball springs off a clubface, will be set at 0.83--the same as the USGA limit.

Until Tuesday’s R&A; ruling, players could use the thin-faced drivers at the British Open or World Golf Championships held overseas, but not on the PGA Tour or the three American majors--the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA Championship.

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Happy Trails,

Ocean Trails?

Donald Trump’s deal to buy Ocean Trails Golf Course is still in escrow and it’s not expected to close until late November, but Trump apparently is moving forward with plans to turn the oceanfront course into a private country club.

The California Coastal Commission has a restriction in its deed with Ocean Trails that stipulates the course must remain public, but sources close to the negotiations say Trump has been lobbying the commission to have the restriction removed.

“I’ve heard rumors that he’s interested in privatizing,” Rancho Palos Verdes City Manager Les Evans said. “It’s possible that the deed restriction could be removed, but going through the Coastal Commission is like swimming through an ocean of sharks.”

Trump purchased Ocean Trails in August, despite a history of problems at the course. A chunk of land around Ocean Trails’ 18th hole plunged into the Pacific in June 1999, just before the course opened. Two other holes--the 9th and 12th--were closed during subsequent preparations to ready the course for play.

Repairs are continuing under owner Credit Suisse First Boston and the new holes are expected to open in June 2003. Trump owns two other golf courses: Trump International in Florida and Trump National in New York. Both are exclusive private courses with initiation fees reportedly at $300,000.

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Old School

The youth movement has earned a lot of attention on the PGA Tour this season, but the 40-and-over sector has come on strong in recent weeks. Loren Roberts, 47, won the Texas Open last week, becoming the third winner in six weeks over 40. He is the oldest tour winner since Tom Watson won the MasterCard Colonial at age 48 in 1998.

Six of the top 10 finishers in the Texas Open were over 40, including Fred Couples, whose tie for second was his best finish since winning the 1998 Memorial.

Couples, who turned 43 Thursday, wasn’t concerned about the age of the players in the hunt. All he knew was that Fred Funk, 46, took the lead with birdies on Nos. 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 before he wound up tied with Couples for second.

“I never even thought about [their ages],” he said. “What crossed my mind is that Fred Funk is 16 under and going crazy. I don’t really look at them different, whether they’re 22 or 50.”

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He Forgot the Alamo

For Funk, it was his fourth runner-up finish this year, but his wife’s family might have been the biggest loser. Had he won, Funk said he would have taken his wife Sharon and her parents on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.

But after the tie for second in San Antonio, Funk said he’d take them someplace else.

“Probably down to Austin,” he said.

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Analyze This

Andy Miller, son of NBC analyst Johnny Miller, won for the first time as a professional last week at the Buy.com State Farm Open in Rancho Cucamonga.

Miller, who got in the tournament as a Monday qualifier, is the fifth son of a former PGA tour winner to win on the Buy.com tour. The others were Briny Baird (father was Butch), Hugh Royer III (Hugh), Guy Boros (Julius) and Dave Stockton Jr. (Dave). Stockton Jr. was in a four-man playoff with Miller at Empire Lakes.

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Team Matches Beeming

PGA Championship winner Rich Beem has been added to the field for the Hyundai Team Championships Nov. 15-17 at Monarch Beach Golf Resort in Dana Point.

Beem will team with Australian Peter Lonard in the team match-play event. Jerry Kelly and Chris Smith have also been added, as have Peter Jacobsen and Scott McCarron. Defending champions Couples and Mark Calcavecchia also will complete in the PGA Tour portion of the field.

Allen Doyle and Dana Quigley are defending champions in the Senior PGA Tour matches and Janice Moodie and Lorie Kane won the LPGA matches last year. The remaining teams in the senior and LPGA fields will be announced in the coming weeks.

Tickets: (877) 484-3014 or www.ticketmaster.com

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Birdies, Bogeys, Pars

The final stage of LPGA Tour qualifying takes place Oct. 8-11 in Daytona Beach, Fla. A total of 141 players are competing for 23 fully exempt spots and 35 conditional spots for 2003.... Advance tickets are on sale for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in the Palm Desert area Jan. 27-Feb. 3. Prices range from $20-$75. Information: (888) MR B HOPE or www.bhcc.com.... Pepperdine will play host to the men’s Club Glove Intercollegiate Championship Oct. 7-8 at Saticoy Country Club in Somis. The 12-team field includes UCLA, ranked No. 3 in the nation by Golfweek Magazine, No. 6 New Mexico, No. 22 Oklahoma, No. 27 California, Brigham Young, Colorado State, Oregon, Southern Methodist, Stanford, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.