He’s getting himself into a ring of fire

Tony, Tony, Tony.

Less than two weeks after his Paris wedding to actress Eva Longoria, San Antonio Spurs star Tony Parker says wearing his wedding ring feels “weird.”

“”I don’t wear rings,” Parker said. “ ... The only ring that I was wearing is our championship rings, but you only wear that maybe two times, three times maybe. So I have to get used to it.”

In fairness to Parker, he certainly sounds smitten with Longoria.

But he went on to say in an Associated Press story that it might be tough keeping up with his wedding band because players must take off their jewelry for games.

“A lot of my teammates told me they lost it like five or six times,” Parker said. “So I’m going to try to lose it only one or two times.”

A little word of caution, Tony. We notice certain athletes seem to lose their rings most often on the road, and find them particularly uncomfortable in bars.

Trivia time

In honor of Jean Van de Velde, what does the term “burn” refer to on a Scottish golf course?

A good sport

Van de Velde isn’t playing in the British Open because of a troubling illness that has been diagnosed as mononucleosis, although he is continuing to undergo a battery of tests, including one that checked for bone cancer.

The Frenchman led the 1999 Open at Carnoustie by three strokes entering the final hole yet managed to lose. He spoke about that to reporters by conference call this week, once again answering questions about his spectacular collapse.

Back in 1999, he said, “This is only a golf tournament. Who is going to remember this in 200 years?”

But the questions keep coming -- almost daily, he said -- and he keeps answering.

“Well, listen, to be really honest, of course you get tired, especially when you have to answer the same question over and over. But, no, I think it’s fine. I think it’s going to last at least a good 15 to 20 years before people stop asking me questions.

“There’s probably another 12 to go.”

Inspecting gadgets

Golf seems to inspire more gadgets than any other sport, probably because we all imagine that with the right tool or device we could actually break par. Or at least 90.

Now the Golf Channel has a series called “Fore Inventors Only” that pares more than 100 golf-gadget inventors down to one winner. The grand prize: Shelf space for their invention at the retailer Golfsmith for one year, an infomercial for their product and $50,000 worth of commercial and promotional air time on the Golf Channel.

Among the contestants: Darren Newberry of Granada Hills, whose portable Trunk Chair can be put on the back of a truck or a car to make it easier to change your shoes before and after a round of golf, and Andre Von Heerden of Redondo Beach, whose Load and Explode swing training device restricts sway and trains hip pivoting.

Now, if somebody could just invent a way for us to find time to play.

Trivia answer

A creek.

After Van de Velde’s second shot on No. 18 went off the grandstand and back into the rough, his third went into the burn. He ended up making a seven on the hole, and the sight of him standing barefooted in the creek with his pants legs rolled up as he considered whether to try to hit it out has become one of the most memorable images in British Open history.

And finally

Tennis player James Blake, out with a new book, “Breaking Back” about his life story, was asked by Times reporter Lisa Dillman whether he ever had writer’s block.

“I can talk about myself all day,” Blake said. “That’s easy.”

So, apparently not.

robyn.norwood@latimes.com