He’s a Smart-Aleck, Not a Dummy

When he finished his work as host on the DVD called “Golf For Dummies,” Gary McCord knew he wasn’t done. He had to field-test it.

“It had to make sense and it makes perfect sense,” he said. “I had a couple of guys I know look at it who can’t play a lick, and they said it made sense. That’s good enough for me.”

McCord can play more than a lick, although he doesn’t play often on the Champions Tour because he’s too busy on the CBS golf telecasts. Still, he’s a two-time Champions Tour winner and has made more than $3.2 million.

What he has seen of the PGA Tour this year has impressed McCord (“All the show ponies are playing good”), but he said there was one area in which the PGA Tour can’t touch the older man’s circuit.

“We’ve got just about every personality there is in golf right now,” he said. “Fuzzy [Zoeller], [Craig] Stadler, [Peter] Jacobsen, [Tom] Watson. We’ve got to be warm and cuddly. We’re a giant corporate outing and we’ve got to treat the gallery and the sponsors that way.”

McCord, who wrote the “Golf For Dummies” book, said it doesn’t take a genius to see how the PGA Tour goes about its marketing.

“The regular tour can sell itself with Tiger Woods there ... but Tiger only plays 17-18 events. Now, you’ve got Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh carrying some of the load too. Before, if Tiger wasn’t there, it was a non-event.”

“Golf For Dummies” will be available in stores on June 8.

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He turned 50 in December, but Jay Haas won’t make his Champions Tour debut until this week at the Senior PGA Championship at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. It’s easy to see why. He’s doing too well on the PGA Tour, with four top 10s and $1.082 million in earnings.

“It didn’t make sense to play on the Champions Tour,” Haas said.

“It made sense to try to do well on the PGA Tour.”

Haas, who has only two other over-50 tournaments on his schedule -- the Senior British Open and the U.S. Senior Open -- is 12th on the Ryder Cup points list and that’s what is driving him.

“If you had told me it would be this way in 2000, that would have been pretty far-fetched,” said Haas, who finished 144th on the money list that year and was 155th in scoring average.

Haas ranks 11th in scoring average this year, so his Ryder Cup drive is alive.

“I’m not obsessed by it, but I am driven by it. If I do make the team on points, regardless of my age, it’s a great accomplishment.”

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Haas, asked if being 50 is being old: “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel like. I don’t feel old.”

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Poor Trevor Immelman. All the 24-year-old rising star from South Africa did was win the Deutsche Bank SAP Open, move to third place on the European Tour’s Order of Merit and cause all hell to break loose because he did so by using a so-called belly putter.

That style of putter, which has also been used by Singh, Fred Couples, Lee Westwood and Colin Montgomerie, is anchored against the player’s stomach. Ernie Els kicked off the controversy the day Immelman took the first-round lead, saying the putter should be banned. Even Montgomerie agreed.

Now, the Royal and Ancient, which sets golf’s standards for the European Tour, apparently is waiting to see how the controversy plays out before deciding whether to rule on the putter.

Said Immelman: “Yes, I putted well, but I had 13 other good clubs in the bag too.”

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The Tiger Factor: Sunday’s fourth round at the Colonial on CBS had an overnight Nielsen rating of 2.9. Woods didn’t play in the tournament. The fourth round at the Byron Nelson on CBS had an overnight Nielsen rating of 4.4. Woods played in that tournament.

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Neither John Daly nor Montgomerie are exempt for the U.S. Open, but they’ve still got a chance. There are only three exemption categories still alive through this week’s PGA Tour and European Tour events -- top 50 in the world rankings, top 10 on the PGA Tour money list (Daly is 15th) and top two on the European Tour money list (Montgomerie is 13th).

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Steve Flesch’s victory at the Colonial, his first PGA Tour win in more than a year, came on his 37th birthday. According to statistical guru Sal Johnson, only four others in the last 45 years have won on their birthday: David Edwards, 1993 MCI Heritage Classic, 37; Andy Bean, 1977 Doral, 24; Dave Hill, 1973 Danny Thomas, 36; Billy Casper, 1958 Buick Open, 27.

Flesch has used three putters in 15 tournaments this season, including a belly putter. The one he used to close out his victory Sunday didn’t find its way into his bag until the day before.

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MacKinzie Kline, 12, of Encinitas, the national spokesperson for the Children’s Heart Foundation, which helps children with congenital or acquired heart disease, will try to qualify for one of two spots in next week’s LPGA Kellogg-Keebler Classic at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora, Ill. She also qualified for the U.S. Women’s Public Links Championship, where Michelle Wie is the defending champion and Kline will be the youngest player in the field for the second consecutive year.