In the category of better things to do than waiting around Houston for a hurricane to arrive, Houstonian Mike Rice — who I believe plays out of Champions Golf Club — won the the 2005 USGA Senior Amateur Championship on Thursday at the Farm Golf Club in Rocky Face, Ga. Mr. Rice, who is 65, is the oldest winner of the event in 18 years. Here is the transcript of the post-victory interview with Mr. Rice. Hat tip to Bogey McDuff over at Golf Texas for the links to Mr. Rice’s victory.

Hand it to the Onion to provide some levity during Houston’s preparations for Hurricane Rita:

WASHINGTON, DC—A bill introduced by Sen. George Allen (R-VA) as “just a goof” several weeks ago was signed into law by President Bush Tuesday.
“I was just trying to crack up Frist and some of the other guys,” Allen said. “Everyone’s been on edge lately, what with the Katrina situation, and I thought we could use a good laugh.”
Added Allen: “Looks like the joke’s on me. And, I suppose, the American citizens.”
S. 1718, also known as the Preservation Of Public Lands Of America Act, authorized a shift of $138 billion from the federal Medicare fund to a massive landscaping effort that, over the next five years, will transform Yellowstone National Park into a luxury private golf estate.
“I thought it was pretty damn funny when I read over the draft of the thing,” said Allen, who said he struggled to keep a straight face when he introduced the law. “Especially the part about how it would create over 10,000 caddy and drink-girl jobs. But I guess it went over people’s heads.”
The bill passed with a vote of 63-37.

Read on.

Popular Shreveport, Louisiana-based PGA Tour golfer David Toms was hospitalized yesterday on an emergency basis after he was seen clutching his chest and taking a knee due to an escalated heart rate while playing the first round of the 84 Lumber Classic in Pennsylvania. Toms was rushed to a hospital via Life Flight helicopter where he is now reported to be in stable condition.
Update: Toms has been released from the hospital after being diagnosed with Supraventricular Tachycardia, which is a general term for any rapid heart rate originating above the ventricles. It is generally a non-life-threatening condition that can be either treated with medication or cured with minor surgery.

Houston has a particularly rich golf heritage that is reflected by the fact that such golf notables as Jack Burke, Jr., Jimmy Demaret, Dave Marr, and Claude Harmon, Sr. lived here for much of their lives. The Chronicle’s Steve Campbell notes one of the more low-profile Houstonians that has contributed to that rich tradition with this piece on golf instructor and golf course design expert, Jim Hardy, who has become sort of a last hope for several professional golfers who are struggling with their swings and ready to give up competitive golf.

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Curt Sampson has already written the best biography on Ben Hogan, and now he is attempting to equal that feat in regard to Bobby Jones, who remains the only golfer to win the Grand Slam of Golf in the same year and who retired from competitive golf almost immediately after doing so. Mr. Sampson’s new book on Mr. Jones is excerpted in this Golf World piece entitled Bobby in a New Light – Seventy-five years after his Grand Slam, Bobby Jones is more compelling than the myths surrounding him:

[L]ike Lincoln and Churchill and Marilyn Monroe, Jones led a life big enough to be considered from a variety of angles and with varying levels of awe and skepticism. Perhaps by considering his life in reverse, we can appreciate golf’s greatest hero in a new light. After all, he won the Slam at age 28, and then quit the game. He lived 41 more years.

Hat tip to Geoff Shackelford for the link to the Golf World piece.

Various PGA Tour officials are scrambling today to make sure that recently-crowned PGA Tournament Champion Phil Mickelson is not paired to play with Australian journeyman and PGA Tour player Paul Gow after Gow had this to say during an Austrailian radio interview earlier this week about his fellow Tour players’ opinion of Mickelson:

“They wouldn’t feed him. He ignores the other players. He’s an arrogant person. He’s the opposite – what you see on television is totally different to what he is around the clubhouse. And Tiger is the opposite – he will talk to you, he will sit down next to you at lunch and ask about your family and stuff. Phil is the opposite. He has done some great acting classes in Hollywood and they’ve worked out for him.”

As noted in this previous post, the Rees Jones-designed Golf Club of Houston Course opened for play earlier this month to generally positive reviews. The Tournament Course — the new specially-designed home of the Shell Houston Open PGA Tour Golf Tournament — is the latest step in the Houston Golf Association‘s efforts to revive the lagging event, which relocated to Redstone three years ago after a spectacularly successful 28 year run in The Woodlands, primarily at the Tournament (formerly the TPC) Course.
Several days ago, three pals and I teed it up at the Tournament Course for the first time. Although we should have had our heads examined, we decided — in order to get the full flavor of the course — that we would walk the course with caddies (in 95 degree temperature with 90% humidity!) and play the course from the tournament (i.e., the longest) tees. Inasmuch as the ground was still quite wet from a heavy rain storm the previous afternoon, we received no roll on our drives and felt like we trudged every one of the 7,500 yards of the course. Despite the challenging conditions, we had a jolly good time, and the following is my report (with photographs) on the newest addition to the generally underrated family of Houston championship golf courses.

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One of my favorite professional golfers is fellow Houstonian and University of Houston alum Steve Elkington. Elk is just two shots out of the lead going into the final round of the PGA Golf Championship this weekend, and he noted one big advantage of living in Houston while responding to a media question on how he dealt with the stifling 109 degree heat index during his Saturday round at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, New Jersey:

“Being Australian and living in Houston, I thought it was quite cool.”

The TNT Network weekday coverage of the PGA Golf Championship was somewhat frustrating, as it basically followed Tiger Woods while he struggled to make the cut and then occasionally showed the players who are actually in contention. But then, out of the blue, the coverage was saved by none other than former NBA star Charles Barkley, who proceeded to provide a highly entertaining and funny interview about golf. Among Barkley’s comments were the following:
As the coverage was showing Woods’ reaction immediately after he had hit his ball into the water hazard on the 4th hole:

“Uh, oh, don’t zoom in.”

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The PGA Golf Championship begins tomorrow at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. Golf Digest has its usual excellent coverage here, including this nifty interactive map.
By the way, this interesting Golf Digest article on the 1965 PGA Tournament — which was won by the late Houstonian Dave Marr — includes a funny anecdote about Ben Hogan that Dave passed along to me years ago over lunch at Houston’s Lochinvar Golf Club. Dave loved telling this story and did so humorously, so my written rendition of it cannot do Dave’s oral version justice. But the story went something like this:

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