Putting Up With Women Golfers Is Act of Charity

I hadn’t given much thought about all this hubbub over Annika Sorenstam playing golf with the men until Monday, when I played in the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission’s tournament at Riviera.

There were 143 golfers, including four women -- and I got stuck with two of them.

Jack Scalia, a.k.a. Chris Stamp on “All My Children,” who was just shot and killed on the show, completed our foursome, which meant I was playing with two women and a dead man.

The dead man, of course, outdrove the two women all day.

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I’M PRETTY sure if you dig deep into Vijay Singh’s background you’re going to find the fact he was once paired in a charity golf tournament with two women -- and I think I have a pretty good idea which two -- which would explain why he said he what he did about Sorenstam.

The Charity Tour, though, is a little bit different than the PGA Tour because if Tiger is playing no one else has a chance to win on the PGA Tour, so it’s not as if Sorenstam is going to hurt them. Women are a much bigger problem on the Charity Tour. Ordinarily on the Charity Tour every foursome that tees off, which doesn’t include a woman or Times’ Sports Editor Bill Dwyre, has a real chance of winning.

LASEC President Kathy Schloessman, however, had me teeing off with two mothers, “the M & M Girls,” Eileen Moore (two children) and Kristin McQueen (two children), who apparently are also successful businesswomen.

Schloessman, who is probably L.A.’s No. 1 ambassador, helping to bring the NHL and NBA All-Star games here as well as contributing to the Emmy and Grammy productions, probably wanted me to feel what it’s like to be the Dodgers every April when they start off with no chance of winning. (Everyone else said she was just trying to make sure I didn’t come back next year.)

Well, anyway the M & M Girls were very nice, and honestly, of all the golfers I’ve ever played with, including Dwyre, they wore the prettiest earrings. They told me they were friends of former L.A. mayor Richard Riordan, but I noticed His Honor The Slicer -- lucky for me he’s not a hooker -- had elected not to play with them. I wasn’t surprised, knowing how things went for him in the gubernatorial primary; I guess he just wanted the chance to feel what it might be like to win something.

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NOW I’M not a big fan of the bellyaching, no-name guys on the PGA. They insist on silence, and with women on the course, let me just say: “Go Girls.”

Let’s face it, the men on the PGA Tour are also boring, unless we’re talking about Tiger or Phil Mickelson gagging, so I’m all for Sorenstam joining them just for the pure entertainment of watching them squirm.

It takes a real man, though, to hang in there beyond the histrionics that come with a broken tee, or the women spotting a limping deer in the middle of the fairway. “Oh, you got go save him,” one of the M & M Girls said, and me caught without my hunting rifle.

I have to tell you, there’s also a special thrill lining up a putt, and having Moore -- who owns a software company -- suddenly shrieking because there is a ladybug in jeopardy of being squashed. And then waiting while she insists on looking to see if the bug is male or female with two foursomes waiting on the tee to hit.

Try and focus on a downhill, twisting seven-footer at Riviera, knowing you have crummy partners, one of them a Disney lawyer who keeps jumping up and down, yelling, “I’m a cast member; I’m happy,” while never giving it a thought until this very second that there really are guy ladybugs.

Only four women in a field of 143 and I get two of them, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for the guys on the PGA Tour.

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THE MEN catch a break, though, because The Pretty Boy won’t be joining them. The Pretty Boy would be the dead man, the soap opera love interest of Susan Lucci before getting knocked off, who “did as much for Eminence underwear as Jane Russell did for the 18-hour bra” according to his official Web site.

The Pretty Boy, named one of People Magazine’s “sexiest men” in the world in 2001 -- although I don’t recall either one of the women in our group giving him a second look -- will unveil “Scalia’s Italian-American Marinara Sauce” next month as part of his “Celebrity Secret Sauces” campaign.

Anything to keep The Pretty Boy off the golf course, I say, which really goes to show you, if you’re Sorenstam and you’re playing with PGA fuddy-duds, you’re a whole lot better off today than being in the same group with the dead soap opera star, the two gabby hackers and the Page 2 columnist. You play with the Page 2 columnist, and by the time he gets around to writing about it, I think we all know who is going to look the best.

At least Sorenstam is still sitting pretty.

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I HAD a genuinely nice chat at the tournament with Kevin Malone, former Dodgers’ GM who is now working as VP of development for The Master’s College. Brett Bittel, another golfer on hand for the tournament, interrupted to say he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Malone’s foursome, by the way, won some kind of trophy. There were no women in his group.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Lee Evans:

“I attended the Dodgers/Marlins game Friday, and while I was patiently waiting for someone to get a hit, I read the scrolling message board in left. In doing so, I saw that on June 6, 7, and 8 the Dodgers will host the Chicago White Socks.”

Too bad; that’s Belmont weekend and you would think the Dodgers would be playing the Philadelphia Fillies.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.