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But did he take a divot?

A Wisconsin golfer had 13 drinks before he tripped and fell face first onto a brick path outside a clubhouse, breaking his jaw and shattering his teeth. But an appeals court said the course was at fault.

Dale L. Larson - who needed nine root canals, 23 crowns and had his jaw wired shut for months - was awarded $41,540 in damages even though his own lawyer said it was rare for a drunk person to win a negligence case.

The appeals court upheld a ruling that Indianhead Golf and Recreation Inc., was 51 percent negligent because of its terra-lock brick ramp. Judge Vincent Howard said gaps in the bricks could have caused even a sober person to fall.

But Larson was hardly sober on May 16, 1990. A doctor testified Larson was in a stupor, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.28 percent 90 minutes after the accident. But Larson said he was not significantly impaired by the eight beers and five mixed drinks he had over a period of 6 hours before the accident.

Impaired? Nah. If he hadn’t tripped on those bricks, he would have simply jumped in his car and driven home.

Call it the Psychotic Hot Line

In an effort to promote his team and its new league, Conference USA, University of Houston football coach Kim Helton has been appearing on radio shows - and last Friday, KRBE offered him a morning gig with hosts Sam Malone and Maria Todd.

“I walked in there thinking I was going to advertise our football,” Helton said. “They slipped the headset on me and the next thing I know, they’re saying, ‘Here’s the Love Coach.”’

The first caller was a woman who wanted to know what she should do about her boyfriend, who had been seeing other women. Helton’s counsel: “Get another.”

Helton’s advice-to-the-lovelorn program has gained a loyal listenership.

“I walk around campus and students walk past me and say, ‘Hey, Love Coach, that was pretty good,”’ Helton said. “I keep wondering if I’m going to walk into an irate boyfriend who didn’t like my advice.”

Or worse, an irate booster who suggests that, with a 4-4 record, Helton had better concentrate on drive time of a different nature.

Scrubbing the mission

The Blast is out. Next up: the Akronauts?

Mike Agganis says he will change the name of Akron’s Class AA Eastern League baseball team that fans and officials criticized as insensitive.

Agganis named the team to honor Ohio’s contribution to the space program - mentioning John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, the Wright Brothers and Akron native Judith Resnik, who was killed in the 1986 Challenger explosion. That triggered the taste debate, and even Mayor Don Plusquellic and the city council lobbied for a name change.

Fans also objected to the mascot “Kaboom.”

The team will collect suggestions for a new name. Among the leading candidates during the first selection process were Zeppelins, Vulcans and Canal Rats.

Zeppelins? Oh, real sensitive to surviving relatives of the Hindenburg victims …

The last word …

“I still have the stuff they took out. I could make elbow stew. Just add garlic and one large pizza.”

- Whalers defenseman Glen Featherstone, who had bone chunks, shavings and other debris removed from his elbow

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo