Mission Hills Is Missing Frills

Nobody is going to notice any change in the Kraft Nabisco Championship once the tournament starts, but it’s a vastly different event going on this week at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage.

Because of the war in Iraq, sponsor Kraft has cut back drastically on its normal corporate hospitality, including trimming the two-day pro-am in half, canceling its Wednesday night gala and eliminating entertainment for its important vendors for a week.

In other words, the corporate schmooze is not happening.

Kraft didn’t want to put its vendors in the position of flying during the conflict. If Kraft loses out on the chance to wine and dine its best clients, the bright side is that it’s also saving all those expenses.

“Out of deference to their families, we did not want to take them away from them,” Kraft’s Lynne Galia said. “Nor their businesses, either.”

As far as the tournament, there are other factors at work. Kraft has remained steadfast against changing the tournament dates because this week worked perfectly for its corporate hospitality interests.

And now that particular phase of the event has disappeared, for all intents and purposes.

What’s left is the usual major LPGA problem -- a television nightmare. It’s up against the PGA Tour’s Players Championship, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and coverage of the war that could bump the tournament to ESPN2.

In short, expect the tournament to get hammered in the ratings.

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LPGA Commissioner Ty Votaw’s relationship with player Sophie Gustafson caused a few ripples when it made the news last week, principally over a potential conflict of interest.

However, in the opinion of a national ethics expert, Votaw-Gustafson is much ado about nothing.

“The mere fact that there is a relationship within an organization is not in itself a conflict of interest,” said Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Marina del Rey.

“People have relationships with people they know, with people they see. In this situation, I have to say, what are we worried about here? I’d say good luck to them. Relationships are hard to find.”

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Imagine the looks on the faces of the people at Callaway Golf when the wire services reported Monday that Se Ri Pak had tested a new driver at their place in Carlsbad the week before she won at Phoenix.

Pak doesn’t use a Callaway driver. She uses a TaylorMade driver, a 580-K model that helped her shoot 23 under par in her victory at Phoenix after missing the cut the week before.

“She must have been driving it so well, she just thought she was using the Great Big Bertha II,” said Larry Dorman of Callaway Golf.

For the record, Pak plays the Callaway three-wood and seven-wood but plays a TaylorMade fairway wood and irons in addition to the driver.

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Those red Nike slip-ons that Annika Sorenstam wore last year when she won at Mission Hills? There won’t be a repeat. Sorenstam has signed with Callaway to wear Tour Golf Group’s shoes this week.

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The quote of the week is from Pak, about how much she’d like to win the Nabisco and with it, the ritual jump-into-the-lake at the 18th green at Mission Hills.

Said Pak: “I haven’t done much swimming in a couple of years. Hopefully, Sunday, I can swim a little bit.”

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Here is today’s lesson about how statistics either lie or mislead. Tiger Woods made one of 34 putts that were 15 feet or longer at Bay Hill.

All right, that’s true, but Tiger won by 11 shots because he made 70 of 79 putts that were less than 15 feet, meaning he kept getting the ball close to the hole and he didn’t look at many long putts.

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Aaron Baddeley, who enjoys lifting free weights and has the arms to show for it, has a pet peeve: cell phones in the gym.

“That’s a place where you go to get away from them,” says Baddeley, who is 22 and has been lifting for five years. He says fellow Aussie Greg Norman is his inspiration for weight training.

“He’s the man,” said Baddeley, who bench-presses 215 pounds and dead-lifts 315 pounds.

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So Ernie Els pulled out of the Players because he says the wrist he injured in a practice session with a punching bag is giving him trouble? That’s possible, but he also might be exhausted.

Here’s Els’ travel schedule for the year: Kapalua, Honolulu, Singapore, Bali, Australia, La Costa, Orlando, London, Dubai, London, Orlando.