CASUAL
NORDLINGER, JAY
Casual DREAM BEAT No one likes a braggart, but here's a fact: A golf tournament is a much nicer experience with a press pass. And you feel the difference immediately. You arrive at the Kemper...
...Jesper Parnevik (son of "The Johnny Carson of Sweden") cracking up his friends...
...Ah, the food tent, where you feast all day on sandwiches and pie, exchanging Tour gossip with the grizzled press, some of whom are famous...
...players yakking on their cell phones, inquiring about endorsement contracts...
...Horizontal...
...But you don't wonder for long...
...His demeanor is admirably stoic, as he struggles to recoup his game...
...and Justin Leonard—one of Cosmopolitan magazine's "25 Most Eligible Bachelors"—being teased about the gaggle of giggling girls waiting for his autograph...
...You notice, though, that he says, "Sh—," after poor shots: just as he did on television one year at the Masters (whereupon Ken Venturi, in the booth, said, "That describes it...
...Much of the talk—no surprise here—is about women: "I think that deal might have been firmed up last night," says one of the players...
...Then, it's on to the first tee, scene last year of a notorious episode...
...Swell guy, and totally deserving of Clinton...
...So what do you need...
...This one is recovering from a divorce...
...Toledo may be an average Tour player, but he's a remarkable athlete, adored by his public...
...You are jubilantly, almost impossibly happy...
...after even mediocre tee shots...
...Then you check in at the media center, where you're greeted by a platoon of eager-beaver volunteers who will ensure that you have everything you need...
...Everything: programs (expensive to the average Joe), newspapers, PGA Tour paraphernalia, phones, fax machines . . . and the food tent...
...Norman also flipped the bird to one of his fans in the gallery last year...
...the radio men tape their spots...
...JAY NORDUNGER...
...You arrive at the Kemper Open, outside Washington, D.C., with thousands of other fans...
...Out on the course, you hunt down some of the more interesting players, looking for stories...
...This one is a fervent Bible student...
...You keep going . . . and going...
...The print men tap at their laptops...
...The man has since died, and the Kemper people have installed a plaque in his honor...
...Greg Norman, the president's jerk pal, threw a screaming fit at the announcer, simply because the man had made a gentle reference to Clinton's injury at Norman's Florida estate...
...The caddies, too, are part of the pageant, some of them as familiar as their bosses...
...Fans have lined the rope two and three deep, but you don't have to stand with them: You head straight for the entrance, where a couple of semi-huffy guards try to stop you...
...No wonder people resent the press...
...Just as Lyle is followed by British-accented fans, Toledo is surrounded by Spanish-speaking ones, who shout Viva...
...the TV men fool with their hair...
...that one is losing his putting stroke to drink...
...Back in the media center, your glorious Walter Mitty/Ferris Bueller day is coming to a close...
...But they can't, because you have that thing hanging from your neck, and, in a second, you're mingling with the titans of golf—questioning them, joking with them, spying (or, if you like, reporting) on them...
...And you have a story to file...
...that one has been to a hypnotist...
...Dicky Pride (now there's a name) instructing a portly volunteer who has asked for swing advice...
...Another pro, who styles himself "Big Daddy from Cincinnati," is a well-known connoisseur of the nation's strip bars, and, sure enough, he has a blonde with him right there on the range—and she doesn't look like his wife, or anyone else's...
...As the parade passes by, you realize that you know these guys embarrassingly well—from golf magazines and books and interview shows...
...He still looks like he could go 12 rounds with anyone, and his headcovers are—what else?—^boxing gloves...
...You wonder whether you are spoiled for life—whether you will ever again be able to attend a tournament in the ordinary way...
...says another...
...But there are other scenes, too, best appreciated from a reporter's privileged vantage: swing gurus trying to straighten out their anxious clients...
...You also spot Esteban Toledo, a former lightweight boxing champion from Mexico who has cast his fate with golf...
...At checkpoint after checkpoint, you're waved through by smiling young people, all because of the magical pass that dangles from your rearview mirror...
...They are perhaps the motli-est crew on earth—the carnies of the fairways—and they don't shy away from your notepad, especially if you have cigarettes to give...
...You get to the public parking lot, where you've always left your car before, but you don't stop...
...When you finally reach your designated lot, you're practically in the clubhouse...
...Sandy Lyle is there, a hulking Scotsman who was once the world's top golfer but has been languishing for a decade...
...When the spirit moves you, you wander over to the practice range, to see who's warming up...
Vol. 3 • June 1998 • No. 40
