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Notebook: Blimp Returns

Up, Up And Away

By Gary Van Sickle

Snoopy II was the only blimp that the FAA allowed to fly over a sporting event on Sunday.  Jim Gund GOLF PLUS EXTRA My Shot: Lee Brandon This Old Course Turf Battle TRUST ME There is no quick fix for what's really ailing the Senior tour -- a shortage of star power. Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller will be nice additions next year, but they are not the answer. Tom Watson was the last of golf's superstars BT (Before Tiger), but his game and interest level apparently are not up to the task of reviving a tour whose best days may be behind it. UP DOWN Mike Weir Ernie Els Sophia Mickelson $900,000 Annika Sorenstam Tiger Woods Soul patch Bottle blonde Kingsmill PD Jonathan Kaye THREESOMES Q. What do these players have in common? 1. Tiger Woods 2. Tom Watson 3. Lee Trevino A. They are the only Tour pros to win the Vardon Trophy for low scoring average three straight years. Woods won from 1999 through 2001, Watson from 1977 through '79 and Trevino from 1970 through '72. NEXT UP PGA: Franklin Templeton Shootout LPGA: AFLAC Championship European: Volvo Masters INSTANT POLL Will you play a hot driver knowing that it will later be deemed nonconforming? Yes No View Results

Thought something was missing from golf telecasts lately but couldn't put your finger on it? It was those cool overhead camera shots from a blimp. Golf took a baby step back toward normalcy last week at the Tour Championship in Houston, where the MetLife Snoopy II blimp provided the first airborne coverage of a tournament since Sept. 11. After the attacks, the FAA banned nearly all aircraft, including blimps, from flying within three nautical miles of or 3,000 feet above large public gatherings, such as sporting events.

Last week Snoopy II provided coverage of the final three rounds at Champions Golf Club for ESPN and ABC following an on-again, off-again, on-again sequence that ended with the FAA belatedly approving a waiver for the Houston flyover. "Since Sept. 19, the FAA got a little tighter with the waivers because of those warnings from the CIA and the FBI about new terrorist attacks being likely," says Jim Jennett, who directs ABC's golf telecasts. "They finally approved the blimp on Thursday morning, but that was too late to get it here for the first round. The blimp is hardly the FAA's biggest problem now."

Of the five blimps used by TV at sporting events, Snoopy I and Snoopy II are the most popular at golf tournaments because they're the smallest (130 feet long) and the quietest, and they carry a special, 250-pound camera system. "There are blimps, and there are blimps," says Jennett. "[The Snoopys have] this high-tech camera system -- the only one of its kind -- that's head and shoulders above everything else. So [they're the blimps] people want at their tournaments."

Snoopy II, which is primarily based on the West Coast and piloted by Mitch Johnson and Tom Whiddon, needed three days to fly from Los Angeles to San Antonio, then another four hours on Thursday to get to Houston. The blimp's top speed is 36 knots (41 mph), and it can reach an altitude of 10,000 feet. Snoopy I covers the eastern half of the country. Lately the Snoopys have flown mostly for advertising purposes. "This is the last tournament we'll cover this year," says Johnson. "We've done football, but the NFL doesn't want aircraft flying over its stadiums, so we're not doing any games."

Football and baseball coverage requires the blimps merely to circle the stadium. Golf is trickier. The pilot must constantly reposition the blimp, making sure not to let its shadow fall on, say, Tiger Woods while he's hitting a shot. "The blimp has become a tool of golf coverage," says Jennett. "In baseball, for example, it's used only for wide shots of the stadium, a set-the-scene shot. In golf we use the blimp's camera to show the holes and follow the ball. It makes a telecast feel like a major event."

For the pilots, the hardest part of the job used to be enduring their shifts without a bathroom on board. Now they have to deal with heckling too. Remember Black Sunday, the cheesy 1977 movie about a terrorist plot to attack the Super Bowl with a blimp? "I hadn't heard about it in a long time," Johnson said after the third round of the Tour Championship, "but I heard about it twice today."

That was twice too many.

Hall of Fame
Caponi Finally Gets Her Due

Greg Norman and Payne Stewart undoubtedly will get most of the attention during the Nov. 11 World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla., but no player in the Hall's class of 2001 is more deserving of enshrinement than Donna Caponi. She won 24 LPGA tournaments, including two U.S. Opens and two other majors, over three decades.

Caponi, 56, wasn't in the Hall before now because she failed to meet the LPGA's long-standing requirement of at least 30 wins (a minimum that has since been reduced to 27). "The rules were so strict when I retired, I didn't even think about the Hall," she says. Two years ago, though, the LPGA formed a veterans committee to select deserving players who didn't meet the entry requirements, and this year the committee voted in Caponi.

Caponi, who grew up in Woodland Hills, Calif., turned pro right out of high school, in 1964. "I didn't have anyplace else to go," she says. "They didn't have college golf for women." Five years later she made the U.S. Open her first victory, and a year later she joined Mickey Wright as the only LPGA players to successfully defend an Open title. (Four others have done it since.)

A year ago Judy Rankin became the first player elected to the Hall by the veterans committee, and it's fitting that Caponi would follow in her footsteps. In 1976, when Rankin became the first LPGA player to win more than $100,000 in a season, Caponi did it too, finishing second on the money list. Years later Rankin entered the male-dominated world of golf broadcasting, working for ABC. Caponi made the same move at the Golf Channel. "When Judy got in [the Hall], I thought, Maybe there's a chance," Caponi says. "I didn't want to get my hopes up. It was still a shock when it finally happened."

Caponi learned of her selection upon returning from a photo safari in Kenya. While waiting for her luggage at the Houston airport, she checked her phone messages, and there was one from LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw relaying the good news. "I was going, 'Yes! Yes!'" says Caponi. "I wanted to hug somebody, but I didn't know a person there. They were looking at me as if I were goofy."

X-it Lines
Original Senior Calls It Quits

The long goodbye is over for Miller Barber, one of the last of the original Senior tourists. Barber, whose dark glasses and chicken-wing swing earned him the nickname Mr. X, retired last month at 70 after a remarkable 20-year career with the over-50 set. Barber, a resident of Sherman, Texas, competed in more Senior events (571) than any other player, won the tour's first money title, in 1981 (and another in '82), and holds the tour record for winning at least one tournament in nine consecutive seasons ('81 to '89).

Even in retirement, Barber will continue to worry about the health of the tour he helped launch. So here, direct from the X files, are his parting words.

On schmoozing "People don't realize how hard we worked to get this tour going. We went to pro-am parties and socialized with our partners. Now the players don't even go to the parties."

On gate attractions "This tour had Arnold Palmer and Chi Chi Rodriguez, players with charisma. Now we have great players who can't draw flies."

On the new Seniors "Look at Bruce Lietzke -- he's as excited as can be. Then you have Tom Watson, who couldn't care less."

On the Seniors' TV deal "We have taped coverage that's broadcast on Saturday and Sunday. We're going against SportsCenter on Saturday and 60 Minutes on Sunday. That's never going to work."

On retiring "I had my day and enjoyed every minute of it."

Issue date: November 12, 2001

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