His Golf Handicap Is Called ‘the Boss’

Golf fanatic Al Michaels, a member of Bel-Air Country Club, recently told Golf magazine about a conversation he had with Tiger Woods in 1999, before ABC’s first Monday night golf special the “Showdown at Sherwood,” which pitted Woods against David Duval.

“I was talking with Tiger on the putting green, and he says, ‘You probably don’t get to play much,’ ” Michaels said.

“I told him, ‘Tiger, my biggest fear in life is that my boss, Michael Eisner, who belongs to Bel-Air, shows up at the club. My 16 handicap would give him no pause, but if he checked the books for rounds played in June, he would see 23.’

“Tiger looks at me and says, ‘You play more than I do.’ ”

Trivia time: Michaels, who studied broadcasting at Arizona State, attended what Los Angeles high?

Appropriate headline: The Golf magazine profile of Michaels was written by columnist Connell Barrett. To gather material, Barrett witnessed Michaels’ game during a “raucous” round at Bel-Air.

The headline on Barrett’s report: “Do You Believe in Mulligans? Yes!”

The hole truth: Michaels says that after “Monday Night Football” partner John Madden almost aced a par-three in Hawaii, he told him, “John, maybe it’s a blessing. Now you don’t have to tell people you made your first hole in one with a driver.”

Sure hands: When former UCLA receiver Danny Farmer says he was hanging around Jacksonville, Fla., last weekend with a couple of supermodels, he wasn’t kidding.

He and the models were literally hanging around -- in a weightless state.

Farmer, models Kim Alexis and Bridget Hall, actress NiCole Robinson, and Miami Dolphin quarterback A.J. Feeley and his girlfriend, soccer star Heather Mitts, took a “zero gravity” flight as part of a promotion for a diet soft drink that has an advertising slogan claiming “zero calories.”

During the flight, arranged by Zero Gravity Corp., Feeley threw Farmer a few passes. One thing for sure -- Farmer didn’t have to worry about dropping any.

“Talk about seeing the football in slow motion,” Farmer said. “The ball just floats toward you with no rotation.”

Now this is poor: Fox Sports chairman David Hill, when asked a question on a conference call by reporter David Hillbrand of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said, “My name might have been David Hillbrand, but we were so poor my family couldn’t afford the extra syllable.”

Looking back: On this date in 1969, Louisiana State’s Pete Maravich scored 66 points in the Tigers’ 110-94 loss to Tulane.

One of the top players on the Tulane team was Hollywood actor and screenwriter Harold Sylvester, who turned 20 on that date.

Trivia answer: Hamilton.

And finally: From reader Janice Hough: “I’ve heard that Fox is working on a new reality show about this year’s Lakers during the NBA Finals. The working title is ‘American Idle.’ ”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.