Salma didn’t even send him a ‘Dear T.J.’ e-mail

I KNOW what you’re thinking: How could he possibly go about his business as if nothing happened?

Or, as Tim Harris, the Lakers’ senior vice president put it in an e-mail: “My thoughts are with you at this challenging time.”

There are so many questions, the first offered in an e-mail from Rich Polikoff: “Why God, why?”

It’s just one more reminder how life can turn so quickly, the e-mails pouring in a little after 9 on Friday morning -- wham, bam, thank you ma’am -- everyone wanting to make sure that I had heard the breaking news.

“Salma Hayek is engaged and pregnant.”

Right away, a disbelieving Liz White e-mailed: “How could she do this to you?”

Or, as Emma Schafer was kind enough to write: “My immediate thought was, oh my gosh, condolences to T.J., he will be heartbroken.”

As you might imagine, I thought about insisting on a paternity test, proud of myself that I thought about it before Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband did, but then learned that some rich Frenchman, who makes purses or scarves or doilies or whatever, was now claiming to be a man. Sorry, the man.

“I guess this just proves the adage that power and money are key,” e-mailed Bryan Lane, “and access to free handbags doesn’t hurt either.”

LIFE MUST go on, everyone insists, and although I thought about watching USC on Saturday, if I wanted to go to Staples Center to watch a basketball team get embarrassed and humiliated, I’d go to a Lakers game.

Besides, the last time we kissed and hugged was in Staples Center, and she introduced me to her brother and said, “This could be your brother-in-law one day,” and sorry, it’s just going to take some time....

So I passed on Staples, and really just wanted to be alone, so I went to the senior men’s golf tournament in Newport Beach.

I know, I know, who cares?

If you got the chance, though, to go to the zoo and see the last live giraffe or rhino before it became extinct, I suspect you might.

So I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to spend time with the last remaining golfer with a personality, thrilled to find as I began following Peter Jacobsen that he was still good enough to be one stroke behind the leader.

Good guys don’t always finish last, although I guess he still has a chance to do that today.

NOW BY and large, I don’t like golfers. They open their mouths and nothing comes out but what club they used on No. 3 or a “Sshhh, I’m trying to hit a stationary ball and need complete silence or I will get really mad at you.”

As a group they are stiff, boring, humorless and not Tiger Woods, which makes it a waste to spend any time with them.

By the way, last week it was announced that Woods had agreed to play host to a tournament in Washington, D.C., to honor the military over the Fourth of July and pay for a new learning center in the Washington area.

In some quarters this might be hailed as a great thing.

But a pair of pros, one of them my old fuddy-duddy pal, Brad Faxon, began carrying on like spoiled children. I guess that happens when you spend your whole life expecting someone else to carry your clubs for you. Or, as golf pro Rich Beem put it, “It’s the most totally wrong thing I’ve heard of in a long time that’s sticking it to the players.”

It seems the Woods tournament might limit the number of players allowed to play, which would reduce the number of hacks who usually finish behind Woods.

Beem and Faxon, who get the chance to compete for bigger prize pools because of Woods’ popularity on TV, want a tournament with a full field, so there’s no chance of their being left out. Instead of golf taking a bow with a look to helping the military, it reminds us of how boorish golfers can be.

It’s all stupid, and selfish, and I know how bent out of shape the guys at Riviera got a few years ago when I asked them why anyone should attend a golf tournament that doesn’t include Woods in the field.

I mentioned this to Jacobsen and he laughed. “You ask me that question, and I’m going to tell you why you’re going to show up at that tournament. Let’s call it life after Tiger, or with Tiger.

“You have to set yourself apart, whether it’s dumping balls down the front of your shirt like I do to mimic Craig Stadler, throwing your clubs like Tommy Bolt or carrying on like Lee Trevino, you have to create your own environment. Tiger’s the best at it, like the show ‘Heroes,’ it’s like a supernatural force out there shining down on him.

“But it’s up to each individual to do their own thing. There’s just a time that comes along when you have to step off the sidewalk of anonymity.”

Name another golfer capable of saying something so profound.

“When I got started, I used to ask tournament directors if I could put on a junior clinic each Tuesday,” Jacobsen said. “It forced me to learn how to mimic other golfers and put on a show. In return, I’d ask for a rental car and an exemption to enter the tournament.

“It was creative survival, and it’s what set me apart.”

“Jake” still remains apart from the field, signing his autograph for fans so it can be read -- as Arnold Palmer taught him years ago, writing books, designing golf courses and remaining as approachable as any golfer in the game.

Maybe he would’ve been more successful had he been single-minded like today’s bores, but “no thanks,” he said. “No regrets.”

A week ago Tuesday, he underwent laser surgery on his back. The stitches remain from a pair of incisions. He has had a hip replaced. Last year he withdrew from this tournament because of a sore knee.

Now he has a chance to win it all. I’m glad things are going well for someone.

TODAY’S LAST word comes from the wife:

“Do you think your Salma would’ve stayed married to you for 34 years?”

I think about it every day.

*

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