OK, Jack, Let’s See You Make That Shot Again

Actor Jack Lemmon has appeared in 54 movies, has received eight Academy Award nominations and won two Oscars.

Yet, the one goal that has eluded him is making the cut at the AT&T; National Pro-Am golf tournament on the Monterey Peninsula, the former Bing Crosby clambake.

He’ll try again Thursday for the 31st or 32nd time--he isn’t sure--in partnership with pro Peter Jacobsen. The lowlight of the frustrating years probably occurred at Pebble Beach.

“My wife and I were staying in one of the rooms alongside the tee,” Lemmon told Mark Soltau of the San Francisco Examiner. “She was still in the room when I teed off. I hit my drive off the toe--it never got more than five feet off the ground--and it went off like a rocket right into the open door of my room and started bouncing off the walls.

“It didn’t break one single thing. Felicia [his wife] said it sounded like a machine gun.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the UCLA record for most rebounds in a basketball game?

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Recycling: After the St. Louis Rams had hired a coach who hasn’t coached in 15 years, the next day’s headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch read: “Dick Vermeil?”

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Impressive: Amy Lundquist, DePaul’s 6-foot-5 center, is nicknamed “Big Chief.” It comes from the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” in which a very tall Native American played basketball with Jack Nicholson.

Lundquist is on DePaul’s women’s team.

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Faulty eyesight: Jerry Magee in the San Diego Union-Tribune, writing before Sunday’s Super Bowl: “I can’t see the Packers as a great team. I can’t see them as 14-point favorites, either.”

Green Bay won by 14 points, of course, 35-21.

But at least Magee picked the Packers to win by two points. Columnist Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News went out a limb--it broke--and predicted a 27-24 victory for the Patriots.

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Bad timing: Fritz Shurmur, 64, Green Bay Packer defensive coordinator, on never becoming an NFL head coach: “I guess when I was young, I was too young, and when I got old, I was too old.”

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Mea culpa: The Chicago Blackhawks defeated the New York Rangers on Monday night, 2-1, Chicago scoring twice early in the third period, and Ranger Jeff Beukeboom assumed sole responsibility.

“I got caught in no-man’s land [on Tony Amonte’s rebound goal] and on the next goal I got caught flat-footed [by Ulf Dahlen],” Beukeboom said. “Maybe it was [being]) lackadaisical. I’ll take the blame for it.”

Yeah, yeah, another remorseful goalie. Thing is, Beukeboom is a defenseman.

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Trivia answer: Willie Naulls, with 28 against Arizona State on Jan. 28, 1956.

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And finally: Sacramento King guard Mitch Richmond, on the possibility of the franchise being moved to another city: “If we lose the Kings, the city goes back to what it’s always been--a dead city.”

Gee, Mitch, Sacramento is still the capital of California, isn’t it?