A Few Feet Short, but This Was No Cheap Shot

I was standing 149 yards away from winning $1 million.

As part of the dedication day ceremonies for Somersett Country Club, a course just outside Reno designed by pro golfer Tom Kite, five club members and five members of the media were invited to try to make a hole in one and get rich.

As most of you know, I’m underpaid as Page 2 columnist, and you probably think I have to do things like this to make ends meet, but that’s why I do radio.

This was for charity, much to the disappointment of the family, because I already had promised to donate the $1 million to Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA. The Grocery Store Bagger muttered something about never having to work again if I won, and I don’t think he was talking about me.

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THE MILLION-dollar day began with Kite giving a clinic in 40-degree weather and a windchill factor near freezing. The snow over yonder was nice -- especially if you like skiing to the first hole. (I’m told they have some wonderful igloos here for $200,000 up to $2.5 million.)

Let me tell you, Kite could have been giving a clinic flanked by Salma Hayek and Pamela Anderson in bikinis, but as boring as he can be, I wasn’t going to risk falling asleep, tumbling out of the stands and landing on my head, thereby hurting myself before the big shot.

So I stayed inside with marketing director Michele Attaway, told her I’d rather be with her than Salma and Pamela, and I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, but Attaway promised a $500 donation to the Children’s Hospital a short time later on behalf of the Somersett development.

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THE NATIONAL Hole-In-One Assn. puts the odds of making a hole in one for an amateur at 33,000 to 1, so if you play 50 times a year, that’s probably four par threes a round and 200 shots a year, meaning I’ll have to live only 165 years to have the odds going in my favor.

Sports Editor Bill Dwyre has a hole in one, which proves the point you have to be really, really old to get one. The daughter who can’t get a date has a hole in one too, so at least she has gotten lucky on the golf course.

“I have nine in my career,” Kite said, and I don’t recall anyone asking.

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PHIL WEIDINGER, the top PR guy in the Lake Tahoe/Reno area if you ask him, came up with the idea of the $1-million giveaway to drum up interest in the Somersett project.

Somersett paid an insurance company $1,709 to avoid the potential $1-million payoff, and if no one won, the competitor closest to the pin was going to get a putter. I would have settled for earmuffs.

The first eight competitors missed the green, although one of them did nail a cameraman. And then it was my turn. They introduced me, and because no one in Reno has ever read Page 2, no one booed. That would come later.

A guy with a microphone asked me about winning $1 million. I told the crowd about the children’s hospital, the fact I had read in the paper that Kite had just won $74,000 a day earlier in a Seniors tournament, and how surprised I was that Kite was so cheap, not donating the money to the hospital.

I’ve never let a thing like a groaning crowd bother me, so I went on to say I was going to do my best for the kids, and if it meant winning only a putter, I just hoped the cancer-stricken kids were up for fighting over the consolation prize.

As I prepared to hit, I told Kite that Tiger Woods would have had no problem giving every sick kid a putter, and Kite replied, “Tiger’s a little busy these days.”

Everyone laughed, which was good, because it probably would have been tough swinging a six-iron to win $1 million had the jeering continued.

I hit a high shot into the wind that made the hole play about 165 to 170 yards, landed it atop a hill on the green and then watched as the ball rolled toward the cup. The rain-soaked greens, though, took the steam out of it, stopping it nine feet shy of $1 million.

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KITE STEPPED to the tee, and I yelled, “Bet my new putter you can’t get your shot inside mine,” and Kite, who stands something like No. 35 on the list of all-time PGA money winners, said, “I’ll take that bet.”

Kite didn’t hit the green. He went on to bogey the hole, and, in my mind, I birdied it. Most of the gallery went home happy, happy that I don’t write for their local paper.

Kite and I, meanwhile, chatted. He wasn’t as boring as I thought. He mentioned the work he does for a children’s hospital in Texas, and then we went our separate ways as if nothing had happened -- like he had never lost a bet and failed to pay off.

Maybe he’s just planning to send a check later to Mattel Children’s Hospital, 10833 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles 90095. Attn.: Dr. Kathleen Sakamoto.

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CORRECTION: THE sports editor of the Orange County Register e-mailed my bosses to say I made a mistake Sunday. I had written: “In Saturday’s Register the newspaper gave the coaching nod in the USC-ASU game to the Sun Devils.”

The Register had given the nod to ASU in “intangibles,” but not in “coaching.” I was wrong, and I apologize. From now on I won’t read the Register, so we won’t have this problem again.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Cindi Smith:

“Just wanted to say thank you for taking The Times to task for its blatant UCLA bias. A good friend who didn’t attend either school actually called me recently to congratulate ‘SC for finally making it above the fold on the front of the sports section.”

I remember it well; it was a great day for all of us.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.