It’s called Birdies For The Brave. All the proceeds go to The Naval Special Warfare Foundation. It’s a 7:30 am shotgun start. I’ll be emceeing the festivities before and after golf including prizes and raffles. Among the speakers at lunch: Navy SEAL Commander Jack Riggins.

The Cool Kids Campaign Celebrity Golf Event is one of those events you will come back and play in year after year.

This year’s event is June 14 and 15 at Hunt Valley Golf Course in Phoenix, Maryland. That’s just outside Baltimore. I’ll be one of the celebrities from the d-list along with some A-listers. Former Baltimore Oriole Ken Singleton will be the host. They’re planning on other Oriole and Baltimore Colt greats. There’s a good chance Brooks Robinson will show up again. Last year, I played a round of golf with Colt Running Back Lydell Mitchell. And one group I was able to see the swings and one-liners of Oriole and Yankee great Rick Dempsey.

Last year’s event has a celebrity-only tourney. You can see parts of that tournament here in a show that I co-hosted with my old friend Lee Moore. We had plenty of fun despite the remnants of a hurricane coming through.

This year will be different. There will be no hurricane and no celebrity-only golf event. However, the portion of the event where a celebrity plays with three amateurs will remain. And I will be defending this part of the tourney since my team came in with a score of 18-under par last year. I’m just hoping my team – Steve Hargest, Davis Denis, Rich Belanger, and John Rosema – is ready. Chances are (my tongue planted deeply into my cheek) they might break us up so others can get a chance.

Even before I defend my championship, we’ll see some exhibitions from Long-Drive Champ Sean “The Beast” Fister and trick-shot artist and funnyman Buddy Shelton. (Yes, both of them are great to watch as you try to get into a consistent swing rhythm.)

Before the golf event, which will be on Monday, Sunday will be another full day. We’ll see a polo match. (Trust me, none of us will be mixing the horse vitamins.) And then at night we’ll be entertained by singer-songwriter D. Vincent Williams and Comedian Scott Henry.

Those guys I just mentioned help make this event so special. Sure, they’re talented, but more importantly, they’re great guys to be around. For instance, if you attend these events you will actually meet these guys, have some grub and thrown down some pops. I always walk away with new stories to re-tell.

Because this tournament has been in existence for a few years, it’s safe for you to participate. I often find that new tournaments have problems. The biggest problem is finding and getting rid of celebrities who are not prima donna pains-in-the-ass. This tournament has done that nicely. It’s as “family” as a tourney can get.

But the most important part of the weekend is the kids who are helped by the Cool Kids Campaign. The Belanger Federico Foundation was born out of the heart-break of losing family members to cancer. The family of Oriole shortstop Mark Belanger and Chris Federico who lost his mom to cancer have teamed up to create programs for kids that are enduring the fear of cancer and the treatment.

I left last year’s event with an encouraging feeling and a few tears. You not only meet the people who help the kids but you meet some of the kids and their families. Hopefully this year one of the Cool Kids biggest supporters – figure skating champ Kimmie Meissner – will be there. She won’t play golf. But she works directly with many of the kids in the Cool Kids Campaign.

I hope you’ll join us. All the details are here.

Am I whining that no media outlet will send me? No way. I probably wouldn’t go if they did.

You see, I’ve already been there. It was 1992 the year Freddie won his only green jacket. In fact, I was on the 15th hole when Freddie was way behind a tree in the left rough as he launched the biggest and highest draw that landed on the green.

You don’t remember that. That’s because it happened during Wednesday’s practice round. Yes, I’ve never witnessed an actual round of The Masters in person. And I don’t care.

Here’s why along with my advice for proper Masters watching and Augusta tactics.

The best seat to watch The Masters is, for me, my living room. I won’t miss anything. CBS – and now ESPN on Thursday and Friday - will record and save great shots that were not seen live. You know, the ones where you hear the roar in the distance. When you’re there all you can do is wonder who did what and then watch the leaderboard.

And even if you’re there when something great happens, you might not see it. There are just too many people crammed into small areas surrounding the fairways, tees, and greens.

My good friend actor ( John O’Hurley learned that lesson at the Ryder Cup Matches in 1997 in Valderrama, Spain. He said it wasn’t a good experience for golf nuts, like us, who live and die with every shot and how each shot is hit. John said he spent most of his time in the hospitality tents watching the TV. I’ll bet he had some of that fine Spanish wine too.

Now, if you’re going to the Masters, do as I did, go on the Wednesday practice round. You might think this is a practice round just for the players. It’s not. It’s your practice round.

Walk the course from the first to the 18th hole. Sure, you can’t get inside the ropes; walk outside them.

You will get a feel for the course you can’t see on TV. For instance, TV fails to show you how elevated Augusta National is. While walking the course, you’ll know a golfer with strong legs will win. There’s a good reason why older contenders usually fade on day four.

You’ll also understand why Lee Trevino never won The Masters. The Merry Mex’s famous flat fade may have supported three wives, but it couldn’t withstand Augusta’s consistent right-to-left doglegs that demand a consistent draw.

Trust me, my day walking Augusta was special. Even my wife, who was against the idea at first, tells me she’s glad she took the stroll too.

The other advantage of the Wednesday practice round is the Par 3 event. Most people don’t realize that Augusta has one of the most spectacular par 3 nine-hole golf courses. The majority of holes wrap around a massive lake. The pastoral view must have been what Bobby Jones first saw back in the 1930s.

In addition, the tournament is a throw-away for the players. They know that no one has won the par 3 event and also won the big event. So, the players have fun. Their biggest goal: see how many balls they spin from the top of the green and into the water. I saw Mark Calcavecchia zip four in a row into the drink. The spin action on each one must have traveled at least 30 feet.

Am I trying to talk you out of going to the actual Masters? No. If you love the roar of a fairly polite crowd and can go home and watch the replay of The Masters, then go for it. Be my guest.

However, I have one last bit of advice when you go to Augusta. This comes from Arthur French, one of Ireland’s top real estate developers. We played together at The K Club in Ireland at a Ryder Cup-style event sponsored by the U.S. Ireland Alliance. And at dinner, the Irish players made Arthur tell me his story of going to Augusta.

Arthur became good friends with Scott Ford whose father is Joe Ford, a board member at Augusta National. Arthur said his only remaining golf dream was to play Augusta. Scott placed a call to his father and sure enough Arthur was told he had a tee time in two weeks on a Monday morning at 9 a.m.

“So, John, I immediately called my secretary and said book me a flight to Augusta,” he told me at the dinner. The rest of the Irish contingent, although knowing the story, hung on Arthur’s every word.

Arthur was supposed to arrive the Sunday night before the Monday morning tee time. But late Sunday night, the Fords realize Arthur has not arrived. Finally as midnight neared, Arthur was able to call with some bad news.

“John, I was in Augusta, Maine!” The guys roared.

So, I asked, what did you do? Arthur bribed or plaid his way through cars and private planes and landed in Augusta, Georgia and stood outside the Augusta National gates only 15 minutes before his tee time.

After being up all night traveling about one thousand miles, Arthur French teed it up at Augusta and birdied the first two holes. Arthur is a better man than me.

Enjoy the weekend. You’ll know where I am.

GolfObserver.com, in a well-researched article by Sal Johnson, documents and laments the loss of the golf beat writer.

Welcome to the new media. As Mark Nessmith, editor and COO of the WorldGolf.com Network, wrote in an e-mail alerting me to the story, “My take would be that, as newspapers lay off writers, other outlets (online) will in time pick up the slack.”

He’s right. (But editors are always right.) Golf beat writers will exist. They just won’t write for major dailies that are delivered to your doorstep that you browse over your coffee and bran muffin. You will read about local golf events through the remnants of that old-line newspaper online.

Or you will find that golf beat writer who is entrepreneurial and he has his own website that you have marked as one of your favorites or you see every morning in e-mail in-box. The problem is this entrepreneurial golf writer might not exist right away. Many of us old newspaper folks aren’t business people. Some of the younger ones will be.

You may also find that the golf beat writers will be someone who works for your local golf course or country club. They will speak to you directly. If you want more choices of golfing experiences, you will need to become the most important golf writer in your own life - and dig and find it for yourself. More on that later.

Don’t be surprised if some of the PGA stars become bloggers and get their story out for themselves. Tiger has already done that; he used his web site not long after his surgery to notify folks what he’s doing. These guys may also hire someone (I’m available) to write and post their thoughts, ideas, and excuses after each round. Or the pros may be forced to use the Internet to help drive spectators and help sponsors to pay for their events.

In other words, others will pick up the slack of the golf beat writer. Look at the travel industry. Ask yourself this: on your last trip who was the travel agent that booked your flight? For most of us, the travel agent was you. You went online and you booked the flight, chose the seat, and even printed your boarding pass.

I lecture a lot on the topic The Most Important Journalist Is You. As I write in my book, the paradox of the new century is that we have more information and more technology to deliver the information to us, but we as news consumers have to work harder than ever to decipher the truth or the reality of the news and information we get.

But the death of the beat reporters - and the forced reality of all of us becoming citizen journalists for ourselves - is happening all over the media landscape.

I was at a political and media forum the other night here in Las Vegas on racism and sexism. One of the panelists, an accomplished journalist, quoted a source who said within five years half of the nation’s newspapers won’t exist. Many gasped, but no one disagreed.

The New York Times this week had a number of stories that seemed to yell “fore” to anyone in the old media. I’ve written about them on my web site, www.johndaly.tv.

The first was the use of Twitter.com by people who were either witnesses or victims of the Mumbai attacks.

The second was the death of the local news anchor. TV stations are so strapped due to the economic crisis that the largest salary of the local news anchor is now the first to be cut. And it’s happening in many markets to guys and gals, now in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, who were once icons of their TV markets.

Another eye opener was from Maureen Dowd’s column about outsourcing news to India. A Pasadena newspaper that is now online fired all their reporters and hired reporters from India at $7.50 an article. These reporters live and work in India. They just use the phone and write the stories. The editor reviews all the work, of course, so there won’t be any major news faux pas.

For anyone who worked in newspapers, this is blasphemy. But if you look at it closely, why do you need to pay someone a boat load of money to write a four-inch piece of copy on a local fair or book bazaar?

However, using outsourced journalists also means your publication is not an in-depth piece of journalism. It’s merely a directory of things to do in town, not a beacon of warning. That is frightening to me. Hopefully, we’ll see more investigative Web sites.

But let’s get back to golf. If you’re reading this blog, or anything else here at LasVegasGolf.com or at WorldGolf.com, then you love golf. This new trend is an opportunity for you - especially if you love golf, you know how to write, and you can show local businesses that supporting your online efforts are worth it.

Don’t lament the past; seize the present.

The top box will contain my overall score for the hole. The box underneath it will contain an F for fairway in the upper left-hand corner and a G for green in regulation in the lower right-hand corner.

The box below that contains the number of putts in the upper left-hand corner and a Y, for yes, or N, for no, for getting up and down.

I don’t leave the course until I’ve compiled all that info. The one thing I haven’t done is catalog all that info to see what my season, yearly, or career average might be.

But now you might be able to do that - and much easier. It’s called EGolfScore (www.egolfscore.com). I met the co-founder and CEO Joe Kaplan here at the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic.

EGolfScore kept score for the tournament. They use blackberry devices. Each group had one. One player would enter the scores for each player that is already listed. After pushing ENTER, a leader board would appear on the screen. So, you knew exactly where you and your team stood after each hole.

How many times have you played in an event and you had to guess, “do you think 15 under will win?” Now you know. “Guys we need two eagles on the last hole!” Plus, it keeps all the players’ interest. Everyone in my group wanted to know “what place now?”

Joe offers his services to a number of charity golf events. It costs the tourney $30 to $40 per player. Joe says a sponsor can underwrite the scoring system and have their names on the scoreboard.

But EGolfScore isn’t just for charity and celebrity golf events. “We want to become the official scoring system of golf courses,” Joe told me. He says EGolfScore can make life easy for club pros who have numerous events for their members.

And Joe also wants to get golf nerds like me who don’t necessarily play at a pricey club. You can sign up individually to keep track of your scores as you play. EGolfScore will calculate what Joe calls “a recreational handicap” for you. They’re working with official handicap systems to sync them up in the future, he tells me, so your GHIN will be automatically calculated.

The cost for individuals is only $36 a year; that’s right - $3 a month. Joe estimates there are a half million to one million amateur golfers in the U.S. So, he sees great growth in the company. Right now, they’re looking for investors to expand the privately held company. For more information, Joe says you can contact him by e-mail at joe AT egolfscore DOT COM.

First, Padraig Harrington wins the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. That’s his second major this year; his third in the last six majors. Granted, Tiger’s on the shelf, but an Irishman dominating golf?

Second, Lebron James says he may play in Europe. That’s right. He’d skip the NBA to play in Italy or Spain for huge Euros foregoing the once mighty dollar.

I’m watching all this from Pinehurst Resort - the most American and traditional of sports locations. But wait a minute: didn’t a Kiwi win the U.S. Open here?

It’s time for Americans to relax and finally understand that the world economy has come to your sports world. The problem - for status quo Americans - is the world economy. You can interpret it one of two ways: Either we’re slowing down, or the rest of the world is catching up.

These events, however, should be a wake-up call, but not a call to arms. The world is embracing sports. And because sport is big business, the best athletes and the top owners will go where the money is. Even the English Premier League has nearly half its owners as foreigners. Britain’s biggest export, Beckham, is working in the U.S.

Read a great special report in The Economist in the July 31, 2008 issue. It explains the world’s and business’ love affair with sports and its expansion thanks to media technology.

Despite this natural occurrence, Americans do need to pay attention. For too long, we Americans have paid more attention to sports compared to our standard of living. And for good reason: We’re the greatest country in the world with the greatest athletes performing for our entertainment for the biggest pay-outs in the world. We’ve taken that for granted.

Sports were once an escape from our jobs and the mundane stuff that allowed us to live in the American lifestyle. We need to realize that sports are part of our economic fabric.

The golfer of the year is an Irishman. Paddy Harrington lives in a country that only a generation ago was nearly a third world country. Ireland’s biggest export was their skilled and educated workers. That’s no longer the case. The Celtic Tiger economy is the envy of the world. Granted, the current economic slowdown will hurt the Irish, but it’s not going to send them back to the early 1980s.

Read a great book called “The Pope’s Children: The New Irish Elite” by David McWilliams. Don’t be thrown by the title. McWilliams explains how Ireland found its economic swing in the modern world. They took their educated work force and invested in them to keep them there. Next, they stopped fighting for a unified Ireland. The violence subsided and businesses began to prosper.

The Irish have prospered so much, they’ve become Americans. They consume more and now have the same rate of diseases we have such as diabetes. They also enjoy their leisure-time sports.

Am I saying that the newly formed Irish economy led to Paddy Harrington’s player of the year award? It certainly helped, although it’s hard to quantify. When was the last time an Irishman was the world’s top golfer? Could you refute this? Absolutely and I’ll listen.

Let’s look at the Lebron situation. He might bolt Cleveland and the NBA for $50 million Euros. When asked on ESPN even Kobe Bryant said he’d take that deal too. Who’s to say they both won’t become expats? Horrors! You can see David Stern’s eyeballs rolling in the back of his head.

Does this sound goofy? It shouldn’t. Right now the dollar is weak compared to the euro. Plus teams in Spain or Italy will not only pay those salaries in better exchanged Euros but they’ll pay Lebron and Kobe all their expenses too. That makes the deal even sweeter than what Jay Z and the Nets could whip up. Think about this: Europe, the bastion of Socialism, has no NBA salary cap which makes that continent more free-market than America - at least in sports

We’ve seen it already. A number of good NHL players opted for contracts in their homeland of Russia - where petro dollars are flowing. Tiger tends to skip PGA events to play in Germany, Dubai or Asia. You don’t think he’d accept other invites overseas rather than the Quad Cities?

This trend only continues if again we lose Olympic gold in basketball? Imagine the outcry from the sofas and cell phones on sports talk radio. Brazil and Argentina have showed us up before. What’s worse is that Brazil will only get stronger as they drill for what is considered the world’s newest oil find off their coast. I can see Lebron running the beaches of Ipanema.

How can we stem the flow of athletic talent away from America?

We can wake-up economically. Take your nose out of the BA, YAC, and GIR stats for a short while and start paying attention to the two candidates running for president and anyone who says they’re running for congress.

I’m not going to tell you how to vote. But remember these things.

First, we have a huge federal deficit thanks to tax cuts with no spending cuts - not to mention two wars. We also are a nation of spenders and not savers. More money in our savings accounts would keep us from borrowing money from China and Dubai. If we keep going, the Yankees will be owned by a sheik.

Second, our education system - especially in science - lags behind India and China, the two countries that win more gold medals when it comes to creating jobs.

Third, we have major financial crisis looming as Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt with baby-boomers retiring in droves. If nothing is done, our children and grandchildren won’t have enough money to watch or attend sporting events in America because they will be costly and the only athletes available will be in their 80s. Maybe Randy Johnson can top Cy Young’s 511 wins after all.

I’m not saying that worldwide sports expansion must be stopped. Heck no, this is all good. I see Major League Baseball expanding or merging into Mexico and Japan. The NBA will eventually adopt international rules so we can compete with the same criteria. I think sport has no choice to move in that direction with the Information Age.

But what I don’t want to hear is the belly-aching from sports fans who are sitting on their butts with nachos and extra cheese when their American games get exported or invaded.

No way. I’ll take the good with the bad. Sure, some non-sports fans have been leery of me when they see me taking a drink. Others have left celebrity golf events after seeing me, and not Big John, teeing off for an event. (I’d leave, too.) But these confused folks seem to be a small percentage.

Actually, it’s led to some decent tee times and some good conversation-starting moments. Plus, Big John’s been great to me over the years. He always greets me warmly and then jokingly says, “I thought my name was a good one ’til I met you.”

That’s why it’s so disturbing and sad to hear reports about Big John. And I’m not talking about the recent news reports of his wife allegedly attacking him with a steak knife or the most recent YouTube videos of Big John topless.

No, I’m talking of reports from celebrity friends who have been at events with Big John recently. It goes beyond the usual statements that he’s wasting that incredible golf talent. They tell me that they now think he’s killing himself. Buckets of beer every hour for six hours are then followed by shots of Crown Royal, they tell me. One friend thought Big John has been poisoning his body for so long “he could die if you stopped him from drinking.”

One person who had influence over Big John was Fuzzy Zoeller. The majority of times I ran into Big John were at Fuzzy’s celebrity events. Fuzz put the fear of God in him, because Big John was always on his best behavior. But now friends close to Fuzzy tell me that even Fuzzy has thrown in the towel on Big John.

Now Big John’s influences, I hear, are low-life fans who only feed Big John’s excesses. Apparently there are plenty of good old boys who join Big John in his traveling mobile home or wherever he goes. As one friend said, “What kind of people are they?”
I don’t claim to know these addictions or their causes. Maybe it’s just something within him? Or possibly it was the sudden fame of winning the 1991 PGA Championship as a fill-in? We see it with a lot of young athletes and performers who have little education as stardom is thrust upon them. It’s the price of our now-described American Idol world.

Although maybe it’s the background Big John and I share? In his book, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals,” Thomas Sowell tells how today’s black gangster ghetto culture is not unique to blacks, but is really derived from the 19th Century Scotch-Irish-English immigrants who lived in the South. Sowell writes, “Within this segment of the population, education, hard work, and entrepreneurship were disparaged, while physical exploits, bragging, and indulgences of all kinds were normative.”

I don’t know. To overcome the sadness of the situation, I try to dwell on the fun times I’ve either had with him or as a result of his exploits.

Big John jokingly thinks our family roots run much closer. While we were signing memorabilia at an event, he yelled over to me, “One of our mommas was fooling around.” He pointed to our signatures that were side by side. Our penmanship was eerily similar. My wife witnessed it and gave me a look that seemed to say, “That’s freaky.”

Sometimes I take advantage of the name’s infamy. For instance, I make my usual trek to Martin’s Golf Shop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Last year, a pallet stacked with cheap golf balls awaited me. The balls were John Daly balls. Each ball had his (and technically my) signature perfectly scripted.

And the balls were selling for pennies it seemed. Martin’s was discounting them to clear them out. I bought my fair share.

Here’s the real reason. Invariably at a celebrity event, someone asks for an autographed ball. If I’ve just played a decent round with a good ball I’m reluctant to give it away. But with these John Daly balls, my signature is already on them. (A word of warning to autograph seekers: Whose signature is it really?)

Granted, when I hit an errant drive into one of our nice Las Vegas neighborhoods, the last thing I want is my name smashing through someone’s kitchen window. It’s tough for me to blame him. Or, your playing partner finds your ball in the desert bushes - from one of your previous rounds. Yikes, it’s hard to defend a 7 handicap that way.

Eventually those John Daly balls made me pay. They must have sat in my golf bag too long. One day at Red Rock Arroyo, I whacked one with my driver. The ball’s flight reminded me of three things: a Tim Wakefield knuckleball; a space vehicle from Area 51; and the mark of Zorro. I’ve not played with them since.

I also never played golf with Celine Dion, it appears, because of my name. I tried to contact Celine about playing a round of golf with me for a pilot TV show I was trying to sell. The letter from her people was clear: there is no way she would ever play golf with John Daly. The person who connected me with Celine realized she was confused. Another letter was delivered, still declining, but in a much nicer tone.

Despite all this, I enjoy the mistaken identity. But more importantly, I hope Big John finds the peace and happiness he can’t seem to find. You should pull for him - in that way - too.

That’s GolfTEC’s goal too. GolfTEC is golf meeting the Information Age. GolfTEC is an online golf instruction company. Lessons are filmed and then uploaded online. GolfTEC also includes on-course playing lessons.

In fact, GolfTEC is like a golfers’ Viagra. My wife the other day on the course in an admiringly way said, “Even the ball sounds different coming off your club.”

My Las Vegas golf instructor, Tim Sam, has improved my swing in the first five lessons, but it hasn’t been as easy as popping a little blue pill.

During those five lessons, I was competing or participating in a number of celebrity golf events. I played in the World Series of Golf and the Marine Corp Celebrity Classic at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Yes, the worst time to re-work or re-build your swing is while you’re playing competitively. It’s like trying to make love after five minutes with your blind date.

My scoring results confirm this. I’ve scored in the 70s a few times (tolerable) and more consistently in the low to mid 80s (annoyingly unacceptable). Those higher scores can be attributed to the heat of competition, playing some new, tougher courses, and some on-course tweaking based on Tim’s pointers and drills.

Should we have waited to start the lessons? Yes, but I was real excited about getting to a swing I could live with for a long time.

The first move to improve my performance was a change in my set-up. It was awful. Tim said it looked like an 18-handicapper. He was right. I was stooped over the ball and my hands were too close to my body. As a result, I was coming down on the ball from the outside causing me to cast the club as opposed to swinging.

My shots were inconsistent and lacking distance. It was a tribute to my short-game that I could stay in the high 70s and low 80s.

To change this, Tim has my hands extended from my body - an uncomfortable feeling. The swing felt like a one-piece extension from my back.

But after a while, as I began to correctly use my back muscles, it felt more natural.

However, there were other problems.

As I tried to repeat this extended swing, Tim wanted me to stand taller. I couldn’t. (That’s right, I had trouble getting erect.) And it had nothing to do with my physical capabilities. I’m fairly flexible in my upper body despite being muscular and bulky.

Finally Tim zeroed in on the problem. “Are your clubs too short?” (Hey, no Irish jokes.)

“No, it’s my arms,” I said. I had always joked that my mother must have gotten a whiff of Thalidomide while I was in the womb. In reality, the Daly-Leahy genes carry a short-armed trait. Shirt sleeves dress shirts require careful examination on my part.

Knowing this, you would think I would have made the connection to my golf clubs. And you would think someone - a friend or a teaching pro - might have noticed this during my 42 years of playing golf. But no one did until Tim saw it on a video monitor.

So now the irons are re-shafted as if I were six inches taller. Tim determined the lengths of each club and my good buddies at Las Vegas Golf Repair did the rest.

I’m a new man. I’m now hitting towering shots over trees that are dropping safely on greens. (That’s right, I can really get it up now.) Remember that shot Mickelson hit to win his last tournament. I got it back now.

My taller stance now has my arms hanging straight down while swinging freer away from thighs. I’ve noticed the distance on my irons - 9-iron goes about 145 in Las Vegas and 135 at sea level - has returned.

That discovery alone was worth my time with Tim and GolfTEC. In retrospect, that short-armed, short shaft problem had been my biggest golf hindrance. (Notice I didn’t say short-coming.) In recent year, it had forced me to adapt my swing from a normal upright pass at the ball to a trapping, knock-down attack of the ball. Like Paul Azinger, I would keep the ball back in my stance and hit down. For my short irons, it was alright as I learned how to control the ball with spin. However, I had trouble with my long irons, especially when I needed to hit a high shot over a hazard.

Another change Tim instituted was my return to my old Hogan Apex irons which are closer to blades. The clubs I had been using for six months were too forgiving. As a result, I was not as precise with the irons. Tim thought I might be getting lazy in my swing and swing thoughts. Even though they’re seven years old, the Hogan Apex clubs still feel pretty crisp.

Tim also has me really extending the backswing. My wrists don’t cock until my hands pass my thighs. The amount of space between my thighs and hands has expanded. That allows wider shoulder turns - and more shot distance. These things I had known before, but failed to do. Seeing them on video helps lock these moves into my brain. It’s become second nature.

What we’re working on now are two things. The first is my hips. I had anemic rotation. (It’s probably why I’ve not competed on “Dancing with the Stars.") Tim’s trying to get me to fire the hips through. It’s made me realize how inefficient my swing was. I was relying on a strong upper body too much. Frankly, my lower body was lazy and needs to get to work. But now I’ve noticed that this lower body move is also becoming, though slowly, more repetitive.

The second current change Tim’s introducing is the flattened left wrist and a cupped right wrist at the end of the back swing. It’s the early stages to the supination move that Hogan discovered.

However, it was not easy for me. In fact, it was uncomfortable. Tim made two adjustments for me. One was a visual, the other was a feel. The visual was a video of Stuart Appleby’s swing. I could see it and how it kept Appleby’s hands from getting too far behind his body.

The feel was Tim making a slight adjustment with my grip. The grip was too strong. By neutralizing it, in other words, moving my left thumb down the center of the shaft, less than an inch, the swing became freer and more natural. More importantly, my club remained above parallel and my hands could easily drop into a better hitting position. I was no longer working so hard to get the club into the right position.

And you know what they say about proper positions.

Enjoy the lessons and feel free to comment. (Of course, I might be banned after the golf innuendos here.)

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - When you watch the World Series of Golf, chances are you won’t see me during the competition. But you’ll probably see some interviews with me.

That’s good since my on-air talents were better than my on-course talents.

But you will see a guy by the name of Dee Tiller, a giant round-faced Texan, “From San Antone,” as he’d say. Dee gets to the finals of the event. I won’t ruin the surprise for you.

Dee eliminated me on the 14th hole of the first round. My final shot was a putt. It was also my first putt of the day. Why didn’t I putt until the 14th hole? Golf is only a portion of the World Series of Golf.

The World Series of Golf is a high-stakes tournament that combines poker and golf. It’s a $10,000 buy-in with the chance of taking home $250,000. Players bet on every shot - or they fold and go onto the next hole. When your money is gone, so are you.

Fortunately, I participated in the event as a representative of LasVegasGolf.com – the distributor of my golf blog. One of my bosses there, Josh Hill, who knows poker, was my financial advisor. He made the bets; I hit the shots.

I ran out of LasVegasGolf.com’s dough on hole-14 when Dee called and raised my bet – forcing me to go all in. I had a chip shot on a par-3 from about 15 yards. I ran it off the green on the other side and then three-putted from there.

Dee went on to win our flight – but barely, as Mark Larsen, a quiet and patient golfer, took Dee to four playoff holes before Mark ran out of ante money and was, according to the rules, DQ’d.

Before I bash my game entirely, I did have some good moments. I won three holes forcing the others to fold based on my ability to hit a few good approach shots.

Having to hit a finesse shot is one thing. Having to hit a finesse shot with a couple thousand dollars on the line is another thing. And even worse: hitting that finesse shot with money at stake – in 40 mph winds.

The winds that day at Paiute Golf Resort were the most fierce I’d endured in my 18-plus years living here.

On hole-11 at Paiute, I hit a 325-yard drive right down the middle. My financial guru, Josh, turned to the croupier (that’s what they call the official scorers) and said, “We’ll fold.”

As we drove to the next hole, I joked with Josh: “You know, I just hit one over 300 yards and you folded.”

“Yeah,” Josh said with a laugh, “well, he (meaning Dee) hit his 425 yards.”

He was right. My game was not at its peak, so Josh bet conservatively. He was hoping for a big opening, but neither Dee nor Mark gave me any good openings.

It was a great learning experience for me. I highly recommend the event. It will be next spring, so begin preparing now.

On the golf side, make sure your driver is working long and accurate. If you can’t dominate with your driver you’ll be in trouble. An errant tee ball puts you behind the betting curve. Someone like Dee who crushes the ball into the wind and straight had a huge betting advantage on almost every hole.

Dee later told me that he thought he could have eliminated me earlier but he held back on pushing the bets. Granted, Dee has his share of Texas bravado, but due to his dominance off the tee, I think he actually might have stayed my World Series of Golf execution.

His driving dominance was blatantly evident on the par-4 10th hole. The dogleg left has a lake running up the entire left side. The drive requires a 200 yard clear to hit the narrow fairway. In that wind, Dee was the only one to hit land – just two feet away from the water in a bunker. Still, that two feet of sand was all he needed. The rest of us had no choice but to fold.

But the World Series of Golf is more golf than poker. Don’t get me wrong: you need a decent golf game. But you need guts and cold nerves to make it happen. Before you try this format, make sure you’ve tested your nerves.

Better yet, do what I did: have a great organization sponsor you. Sure, I felt bad that I didn’t win with their money. But I would have felt far worse knowing my savings account was down $10,000.

Josh and John, thanks. I’ll be ready next year.

Gary plays joints around the world. He sings and sounds just like Johnny Cash. But more importantly, Gary Mule Deer is the world’s funniest man.

Don’t take my word. Bob Goen said it first. Bob, you’ll remember, was the host of “Entertainment Tonight.” He was the one without the good-looking legs. When Bob introduced Gary to an audience at a celebrity golf event with the “funniest man in the world” moniker, I was skeptical - but only for a few minutes. In short, Gary has helped soil many drawers while on stage.

To escape his noisy on-stage life, I took Gary to peaceful Siena Golf Course. Some disclosure here: my voice is on Siena’s phone system. If you get put on hold you can hear my banter along with my mangled “grazi” - Italian for thank you. I get asked all the time to say “grazi” now.

Despite what appears to be my attempt to put my non-Italian voice all over Las Vegas one phone system at a time, I really love Siena. Sometimes, I stand on the par-4 ninth fairway and listen to nothing. That’s right: nothing. No cars. No planes. It’s that peaceful. The vistas of the western mountains and the downward view of the Las Vegas Strip add to the tranquility.

I was going to mention this to Gary when suddenly I hear a delicate splash in the pond on the ninth hole. No, it wasn’t a golf ball. It was a fishing line and lure. Yup, Gary carries a rod in his bag. “This is a great spot,” he said, sitting on the edge of the golf cart bobbing his fishing rod. He offered me a rod also conveniently packed in his golf bag.

Gary wants to launch a television show about fishing the great golf courses of America. “Siena is one of the best,” he says. However, the carp weren’t biting. Gary pulled out some Doritos: no luck. I told him, “These are Vegas fish. You need a buffet and a show before they bite.” That when Gary reminded me that I wasn’t funny.

Gary later tried fishing the par-4 18th hole. That was even tougher. “The only thing I caught there was the cart girl.”

Even though no fish were hooked, I was graced with some great American Indian wisdom from Gary: “Most of the putts fall to the Stratosphere; take an extra club when hitting toward the mountains; and it’s better to have loved and lost than wake up for the 3 a.m. feeding.”

It’s the fishing holes that spur Gary’s insights. As my 120 yard tee shot cleared the fishing hole on Siena’s signature par-3 5th hole, Gary told me about the dyslexic atheist: “There is no dog.” But as I looked back at the cascading waterfall and the mountains in the distance, I said aloud, “No, there certainly is a dog.”

You need this gorgeous view because the previous hole, the par-4 4th hole, is tough and uphill while protected by a huge front bunker. “I cannot comment on this hole, because I’ve never been in the fairway,” Gary said.

Siena is not long, but tricky, because of the many sand traps. I caught the big fairway bunker on the left side of the par-4 6th hole. The bunker is deep requiring an uphill shot towards the mountains. I yelled to Gary, “I need another club.”

“Try Red Rock,” he said.

Sipping on a cranberry juice in the Siena Bistro after our round, Gary reminisced about our many years of friendship from all those celebrity golf events. “It’s so great to play golf with a British Open and PGA Championship,” he said. “And you have really kept your weight down.”

Gary and I still speak. After all, he is the world’s funniest man.

In case you’re wondering, Gary admits to changing his name. It used to be Anita Mule Deer.