Bad Showing Lands America in the Rough

Now that American golfers have been swept in the four majors in the same year for the first time, there’s only one thing left to do.

Find someone to blame.

Themselves?

“We’ve lost some of our aggressiveness toward winning golf tournaments,” Arnold Palmer told the Dallas Morning News. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of good players. It doesn’t mean we’re not capable. But we’ve lost an aggressiveness the foreign contingent maintains. We go through periods where we’re happy with the way it’s going and don’t maintain the vigil to win.”

Coaches?

“Foreigners aren’t victims of the over-discipline and coddling of American college golf,” said Frank Hannigan, ABC-TV analyst and former U.S. Golf Assn. executive director. “If Lee Trevino had gone to college, somebody would have imposed discipline and the genius would have been taken away.”

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Add golf: Robert Floyd, the 18-year-old son of tour veteran Raymond Floyd, on the advantages of having a famous father:

“You get to meet a lot of people. You get to play with pro golfers and learn from them year-round. I’ve played with Fred Couples, Greg Norman, as well as Michael Jordan and Dan Marino.”

So who did he learn the most from?

“Actually, Jordan,” said the younger Floyd, who will attend Florida on a golf scholarship in the fall. “He knows so much about competitiveness and being competitive and just giving 100% no matter what you’re doing. Even during just a friendly game, you realize how competitive he is. It just shows a desire to win no matter what he’s doing.”

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Trivia time: What distinction does Andres Guibert, a reserve center with the Minnesota Timberwolves last season, hold?

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Holy Water(s): When last seen in a game that meant something, Denver defensive coordinator Charlie Waters was praying on the sidelines in the fourth quarter of the regular-season finale against the Raiders. With good reason: the Broncos were in the process of wasting a 30-13 halftime lead en route to an overtime loss that knocked them out of the playoffs.

“It’s getting a little tiring hearing about that,” Waters told Newsday. “The one thing I learned about that game is that I learned I need to pray for the team in private, not in public.”

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Striking back: This baseball strike thing has been them vs. us all along, so Kroger’s figures it works both ways. Just look at the full-page ad the grocery store chain took out the other day in Atlanta. Prices on one side for players and owners, “prices for the rest of us” on the other side.

For example: Players and owners can buy whole fryers for $159 a pound with a limit of four “with $2,000,000 additional purchase,” while the general public can get the same fryer for 49 cents, with a limit of four with a $10 additional purchase. A four-roll package of bath tissue goes for $249 for baseball personnel and 79 cents for others. A six-pack of a soft drink could be picked up for a mere $379 in baseball money or $1.19 for others.

No word on whether I.D. is required.

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Trivia answer: He is the first Cuban to play in the NBA. Guibert was a member of the national team before defecting to Puerto Rico.

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Quotebook: Former Detroit Lion Alex Karras: “I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms--Truman’s and Eisenhower’s.”