Not just any T-shirt, mind you, but the one he received from a friend a while ago. The one that reads ``I'm fine'' across the front and ``Don't even ask'' across the back.

It's getting to that point for Azinger, who has grown increasingly weary of questions about his health. Having beaten a shoulder lymphoma into remission, the 1993 PGA Championship winner would like to get back to what he does best - playing golf.

Unfortunately, it's hard to concentrate sometimes amid all the kind words and queries about his recovery. In particular, there's one question that dogs the lanky Floridian from the moment he arrives at the golf course until the moment he drives away: How you feeling?

``I probably only heard that about nine times already today,'' Azinger was saying recently in the early afternoon. ``I heard it three times coming down the stairs. The over-under every day is about 34.''

The 36-year-old shakes his mop-top. He's been doing a lot of that lately.

``See, I felt good when I had cancer,'' he says. ``My shoulder hurt, but it wasn't like I had cancer in the stomach and couldn't eat and never felt good because I was weak. I ate like a pig. But it was in my shoulder; my shoulder hurt. I did chemo and it made me sick. Ten days after my last treatment, I felt better and I haven't been sick since.''

But what about those reports of fatigue? Not just physical fatigue, but mental as well. Isn't that what Azinger's fans and fellow competitors are asking about when they inquire about his health?

``I'm tired once in a while,'' he allows. ``But that's not why they're asking. They care. I know that. But you know what? I don't need to hear it, they need to ask.''

THIS ISN'T easy for Azinger. The easy thing would be to accept the role of Recovery Man and sleepwalk through these next five years, smiling and nodding and answering the very same questions the very same way.

``How you feeling?''

``Getting better. Thanks for asking.''

But the danger there is that Azinger would wake up in a new century, past his golfing prime, relegated to afterthought status. Oh, he'd still be popular. Recovery Man would always have that going for him. But Azinger wants more. He's way too competitive to settle for what Jack Nicklaus likes to call ``ceremonial golf.''

For one thing, Azinger wants to win again. Just once. Just to show everybody, including himself, that he's back. He has more than $7 million in career earnings and 11 tour victories, but he hasn't won since the PGA, hasn't won since the cancer hit.

``My No. 1 goal this year is to play every single shot like it matters,'' Azinger says. ``It was like a walk in the park last year. I was kind of in a daze out there, not really as intense as I need to be to play good golf. I can't be Fuzzy or Lee Trevino or Couples. It looks like they're not even trying and they're out there beating your brains out. I walk around out there like that and I get killed.

``I decided to apply myself, take a shot and see if it doesn't come up with a little better result and so far it's making a difference.''

There was a tie for 11th at the Hawaiian Open and a tie for 20th at the Buick Invitational. But Azinger has also missed three cuts in seven outings.

And so there are the questions. Especially the three words Azinger has come to dread: How you feeling?

``I would say that probably after the first two days Paul was out here, he was tired of the questions,'' says Gary McCord, the veteran CBS golf analyst. ``He's out here to play golf now. Paul lives very much in the present and he wants to perform at the level he was before the cancer. He's fine now and let's go and let's get that brain screwed back on. That's the whole deal. His talent's always going to be there.''

But so, McCord fears, are the questions. Not even a breakthrough victory on the tour, not even five victories, would change everyone's favorite opening line.

``So it's, `Hi, Paul, how you doing and how you feeling?' `Well, I'm feeling good, been feeling good for three years,'ƒ` McCord says. ``Blah, blah, blah. Pretty soon you start feeling bad. You ask yourself, maybe I do look bad.''

AMONG PRO athletes, golfers are probably the best at talking about themselves. They're always promoting some new club that has turned their game around. Or some new swing doctor that flipped the career-turning switch. Or ruminating on life's ups and downs as they're experienced them.

But the conversation usually stays pretty shallow, the topics rarely turn painful. Usually there's lots of laughter, the press serving as a test audience for the next week's corporate outing.

Then there's Azinger. No matter how we phrase the question, its root is always the same: cancer. Cancer isn't funny. Cancer doesn't make people laugh. Cancer doesn't clear your mind, doesn't make it easy for you to spend hours on the practice range.

``If someone asked you the same question every day, I don't care what it is, you would get sick of it after awhile,'' he says. ``How do you like that new boat? I like my new boat. How do you like that Rolls-Royce? I like my Rolls-Royce.

``I don't think it will ever end. That's OK. It's not that big a deal. But my response now is more of a reaction. `Oh, yeah, I'm feeling great. Thanks.' A quick wave and I'm out of here.''

So what should those who care about Azinger say? How should his friends and fans and fellow competitors fill those awkward moments?

Tracy Parks, a registered nurse at Augusta Oncology Associates, says the key is acting normal.

``The main thing is not to make a big issue out of it,'' Parks says. ``Just treat him as you would anybody else on the street. Make it, `Hey, how are you doing?' Not, `Hey, how's your cancer?'ƒ''

That's easier said than done. Because Azinger's story received so much attention and because cancer has touched so many people's lives, it's only natural that we should ask about it.

``With cancer, it's the big C-word and there's a big stigma attached,'' Parks says. ``People think it's a death sentence but not always. Lymphomas are usually the most curable types of cancer. Hopefully for Paul that's it and it's done and it's never going to come back.

``With cancer survivors, though, there's always that fear that it could come back. Even if you get it into remission, it's something he will always have to live with. Every ache and pain, he'll have that fear. `Oh, boy, is this it again?'ƒ''

AND SO AZINGER is on the run, to some extent. As much as his extremely visible profession will allow him to be, he wants to be left alone. He wants to make like Salinger, head for the end of the range and silently pound golf balls into the sunset until every muscle in his body remembers.

Remembers how it felt to repeat. Remembers how it felt to win. Remembers how it felt to be the best.

But he's tired of these daily progress reports. He says he'll let us know when he's all the way back. Or more likely, his scores will let us know.

``I'm 36, I've been interviewed a lot,'' he says. ``My ego doesn't need it. I've just got to go play. That's why I don't do any interviews. I'm tired of the subject being me. Take the focus off me.''

OK, then, what would Azinger like to talk about?

``You know what a perfect Paul Azinger assignment would be?'' he says with a laugh. ``How does it feel to have won three times this year and have 10 other top 10 finishes?''

That's in the future though. What about today?

``Today? Nothing. I'd rather not talk,'' he says. ``I'd rather go on and play and let my clubs do the talking instead of having to say, `How you feel about your game? Oh, pretty good. I'm putting pretty good, chipping pretty good.' Let my clubs do the talking. If I'm worthy of getting in the press room, then I can talk to 20 of them at the same time. I don't want to nickel and dime it to death, so I just say, `Ah, I don't want to talk.'

``I just want to go play, and if I shoot 66, I'll be worthy of a press-room visit. That's kind of where I am right now.''

Really, the T-shirt might not be a bad idea.