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Hot under the collar

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Posted: Tuesday July 06, 1999 12:33 PM

The collapse of John Maginnes' caddie, Garland Dempsey, during Saturday's dangerously hot third round of the Motorola Western Open led to a mild revolt by tour caddies for Sunday's final round. Almost to a man, each refused to wear the green Motorola bibs with his player's name on the back, which didn't make Motorola officials very happy. "If they made us wear them, we were going to collect them all and throw them in the lake at 18," said one tour caddie, who asked not to be identified.

THE SHORT GAME Paul Stankowski and Dicky Pride are first-time expectant fathers. Stankowski's wife, Regina, is due in early August. "I can't wait to meet this little boy," Stankowski said. "I'm ready to be a father." Pride's wife, Kim, is due in mid-October, near the end of the PGA Tour schedule. "My goal is to not have to play," said Pride, who finished fifth this weekend and won $100,000, putting him on target to finish in the top 125. "When the time comes, I want to be there."... Is there something about Cog Hill? Two of the top 20 finishers were lefties -- Mike Weir, who was second, and Greg Chalmers, who tied for 17th ... Just to prove his Nike commercial wasn't done with trick editing, Tiger Woods bounced a ball off a sand wedge behind his back, between his legs and hit it as if he was swinging at a baseball while being interviewed on the practice tee by ABC's Ian Baker-Finch. Woods said the commercial took four takes. He started bouncing the ball during a lull while filming the Nike driving-range commercial, and after a while the director asked if he could film Woods' bouncing act ... Nick Price will return to Carnoustie for the first time since 1975, when he qualified to play in his first British Open. He missed the cut but remembers hanging around to watch the playoff between his friend Jack Newton and Tom Watson (Watson won).

With the temperature in the mid-90s and the heat index climbing near 106 Saturday, caddies believed the bibs and the tour's rules prohibiting shorts were legitimate health concerns. The collapse of the 51-year-old Dempsey, whose heart and breathing stopped briefly before paramedics reached him, figures to renew caddies' interest in being allowed to wear shorts in hot weather. Caddies did wear shorts during the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and no one so much as noticed.

Maginnes, with an ABC technician carrying his bag Sunday, managed a good finish, shooting 70 to tie for sixth. "Maybe I played well because I didn't care how I played," he said. "As far as emotions go, I didn't have any today. I just wanted it to be over. I don't even remember the last four holes Saturday. I felt really guilty about going on. I thought about stopping but I realized if Garland turned out to be O.K. and got healthy, he would kick my ass."

Maginnes supports allowing caddies to wear shorts. "Last year I played in Jackson, Miss., the week of the British Open and it was 110°, the humidity was 98% and there wasn't a breath of wind," he said. "I didn't even go warm up. I walked right from the clubhouse to the first tee. I don't understand the mindset of not allowing shorts."

AMATEUR HOUR: Steve Melnyk, the ABC commentator, is the answer to a trivia question that actually appeared on the game show Jeopardy. Melnyk and Bobby Jones are the only players to have won both the U.S. and British Amateurs. Melnyk won the British in 1971 at Carnoustie, the site for next week's British Open.

"The Walker Cup was the week before at St. Andrews," Melnyk remembered. "I actually played 36 holes in eight of 11 days in a two-week period. It was a grind. It killed us. It rained every day. Carnoustie beats you up. It's a great match-play course because it's so hard, you don't want to have to post a score. I played a friendly practice round the week after the '95 British Open. I hadn't been back since I won the Amateur. The wind blew maybe 15 miles an hour, not hard, and there was no way I could've broken par -- and I played pretty well. My son played and said, 'Dad, this is the hardest course I've ever seen.'"

Melnyk beat Jim Simons in the British Amateur final. "My relief was, Jim beat Tom Kite in the round before," Melnyk said. "I didn't want to play Kite."

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

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