Only Cheats Occasionally

Bill Clinton says his reputation for awarding himself free shots on the golf course - golfers call them “mulligans” - is greatly exaggerated.

He doesn’t do it all that much, and even when he does, he says, he doesn’t get a lot of benefit from it.

“You’d be surprised at how many times you don’t get a bit of good out of it,” the president said in an interview with Golf Digest.

“I normally don’t (take them),” he said. “I let everyone have one off the first tee, and then normally what I do when I’m playing with people is, I just play around and if somebody makes a terrible shot I say, `Well, take that one,’ and then I give everybody else one.”

Clinton said golf takes his mind off work. “I like it for the same reason a lot of other busy people don’t: I like it because it takes so much time,” he said.

“You can’t do well if you’re thinking about anything else… . This is the nearest I ever am to being a normal person.”

Betcha he doesn’t carry his own bag, though.

Fame’s different twists

The U.S. baseball and softball teams both scored dramatic wins to come home with gold medals.

There the comparisons end.

With Tom Lasorda hogging the limelight, who can name one member of the U.S. baseball team?

With Lisa Fernandez, Dot Richardson and Stacey Nuveman getting the richly deserved headlines for their play, who can name the coach of the U.S. softball team?

P.S. It’s Ralph Raymond.

Lessons to learn

After Carolina Panthers cornerback Doug Evans fell into the end zone after recovering a fumble at Carolina’s 3-yard line, believing it would be a touchback only to have it properly ruled a safety, coach George Seifert gave each player a gift.

When the team arrived for meetings Monday morning, Seifert had left a copy of the NFL’s Digest of Rules at each locker.

Shouldn’t coaches make this mandatory at every training camp?

Life in the fast lane

Boston Globe columnist Michael Holley, on what it’s like to be Olympic 100-meter champion Maurice Greene:

“There are no Game 7s, no second quarters, no 20-second timeouts, and no breaks for energy bars. You train four years for a 10-second race, and what most people talk about afterward is how you brought it when the lights came on.”

Stay or else!

T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times has some advice for Virginia Tech’s football program:

“If I’m coaching at Virginia Tech and I know my success is tied to convincing quarterback Michael Vick to remain in school another year, I’m taping the Chargers game every week and showing it to Vick with the reminder that San Diego will probably have the No. 1 pick and make him Ryan Leaf’s roommate.”

The last word …

“It can only get worse.”

- Chargers linebacker Junior Seau on his team’s 0-5 record and tough schedule to come.