Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | 9:15 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
Unless you count the windmill hole at the local putt-putt, I had never witnessed a 12 in golf until Thursday, when Chris Johnson, a veteran on the LPGA tour, took that many shots to hole out out on the Par 5 No. 9 hole at Las Vegas Country Club during the first round of Takefuji Classic.
In golf, about as bad as it gets is an 8 -- the dreaded snowman. I don't think there's a name for a 12, so we'll just call what Johnson did a yeti.
She laid up in front of the green, just like you are supposed to do, but then inexplicably dribbled what should have been an easy approach shot into the pond that fronts the green.
She took a drop and proceeded to hit a line drive that went way left and back into the water.
Upon taking another drop, Johnson belted another screaming liner that sailed well beyond the green and probably would have wound up on the practice tee, had it not literally knocked a course worker off his chair.
She chipped over the green coming back ... and back into the water.
After she took another drop, Johnson finally hit on and two-putted.
When then calculators were done whirring it was official -- a 12. Forget about red numbers on the leaderboard. This one was black and blue.
The amazing thing is that Johnson, who wound up shooting 79, kept her composure throughout the ordeal. I had been walking with her group and she had been playing well -- under par, in fact -- until taking a double bogey on No. 6. But she seemed to put that bad moment behind her by parring the next two holes.
There was no way to foretell the Hindenburg would be lurking on the ninth fairway.
Upon witnessing Johnson's meltdown, I immediately ran to the press room to notify the authorities, or at least my old golfing buddies in New Mexico. I told them what I had just saw and asked them if they now understood why I left my golf clubs in a rest stop trash can somewhere along Interstate 40 on the way to Nevada.
Putting out on last week's note about Ryan Moore's temporary amnesia after his sensational performance as an amateur at the Masters: Turns out it was a public relations course, of all things.
I heard from Moore's instructor, who suggested it must have been the bright lights from the TV cameras or the magnitude of Augusta National that caused Moore's brain fade when CBS' Jim Nantz asked what class he had to get back to, and Moore said he forgot because it had been so long since he had been to class.
Mary Hausch said Moore not only attends class religiously when he's not out making a name for himself on the fairways, but he's also one of her best students.
"He keeps up to date with all his work -- he even did some extra work before the Masters," said Hausch, the former Las Vegas Review-Journal managing editor who also had Moore in her media ethics class. "As good as he is a golfer, he's a good student, too, somebody we are very proud of."
No, Las Vegas, dressage is not something you pin on your date's dress before the senior prom.
Dressage basically is French for horsemanship, but if you're one of the 85,000 -- that's right, 85,000 -- who have purchased tickets for this week's Budweiser World Cup Jumping Final and World Cup Dressage Final Presented by Offield Farms at the Thomas & Mack Center, you probably already knew that.
Actually, an event that few Americans not named Jim McKay have seen up close and personal does have a local angle. In 2003, a dressage rider named Debbie McDonald of Hailey, Idaho, won the Dressage World Cup final on a mare named Brentina, owned by Parry and Peggy Thomas of Las Vegas.
That would be Thomas as in Thomas & Mack Center.
So at least there's one ticket holder who won't need directions to the arena.
When I saw the headline, I was initially impressed that a team of Las Vegas high school basketball stars won the 72-team Pump N Run Spring Tournament at Valley High School. But then I read that the team the Las Vegas Prospects knocked off in the title game was representing Canada.
Have you ever tried to dribble with mittens on your hands?
Had it been hockey or some other pastime at which Canadians excel, such as drinking beer, I could understand the excitement.
All kidding aside, I've been to Canada many times. It's a beautiful country and its citizens are some of the friendliest people you will even encounter. But outside of Steve Nash, they just aren't known for throwing a basketball through a hoop.
I don't know what kind of range Brett Hauer has on his jump shot, but the slap shot of the former Las Vegas Thunder defenseman still must be pretty accurate, as he was added to the 2005 U.S. Men's National Team roster on Monday.
Hauer has been playing pro hockey for 12 seasons, including one in Las Vegas, where the Thunder all but called in Herb Alpert to trumpet his arrival. As I recall, Hauer played like the Lonely Bull on skates, although he was an excellent college player at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and also skated with the 1994 U.S. Olympic squad.
Now I know the real reason everybody expected former Utah football mastermind Urban Meyer to choose Notre Dame instead of Florida in the rush to sign him up as head coach. He was named after a pope.
There were eight Pope Urbans, the last of which served from 1623-1644, even before the advent of the West Coast Offense.
All I know is that if Meyer doesn't go at least 9-2 this year, the black smoke coming from his Gainsville office will probably mean that some irate Gator boosters have just burned it down.
There aren't many college graduates driving Top Fuel dragsters, and in that Las Vegas resident Todd Fuller grew up in Arkansas and still hasn't totally lost his twang, many of his NHRA rivals still aren't convinced that his marketing degree from the University of Arkansas wasn't obtained on eBay.
"A lot of people don't think I'm educated because I'm from Arkansas, but I'm pretty well educated," laughed Fuller, whose family back in Rogers, Ark., still hangs out with the Waltons -- that would be the Sam Waltons of Wal-Mart fame.
I suggested to Fuller that he might ask all those grease monkeys who are giving him a hard time if they have ever heard of Bill Clinton.
The former chief executive, who grew up in Hot Springs, is another guy who has one of those plastic Razorback hats in his closet, although he was educated at Georgetown and Yale.
Did you see the report where sex kitten Pam Anderson was seen getting cozy in Las Vegas with David Binn? That would be the David Binn, a long snapper for the San Diego Chargers.
It has been a long time since I was single, but there must be a heck of a lot of pretty girls that are unspoken for still walking around. Because when I was clubbing, or whatever it's called these days, women like Pam Anderson dated quarterbacks, not guys who play on special teams.
If I'm ever reincarnated, I'm seriously thinking about coming back as an offensive tackle.
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