A Grip on Sports: You know you are starved for live sports when a charity golf match is must-watch TV

A GRIP ON SPORTS • There was something a bit different about yesterday. It wasn’t the rain, which came down as if poured from Big Gulps a couple times in the late afternoon. It wasn’t in the chore list, which still included laundry and cleaning the smallest rooms in the house. Nope, it was the television. It actually had some live sports coming from it.

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• Don’t get too excited. I kept my 27-year streak alive of never watching a NASCAR race. Which isn’t exactly true. I have watched NASCAR in the past. Just not a lot of it. There was, however, an opportunity yesterday. As with all auto racing except the Indianapolis 500, I just didn’t avail myself of it.

Instead, I watched the other live competition: Seeing which announcer could talk over the other most often during a golf broadcast.

And that wasn’t the only thing odd about the charity skins game from legendary Florida golf course, Seminole, Sunday.

Watching Rory McIlroy or Dustin Johnson carrying their bag on their back was also off-putting. Not as off as Bill Murray’s Skype visits – for some reason the camera was at an odd angle – or the visit from the President – sorry, I wasn’t watching at the time – but off none the less.

Professional golfers never carry their bag. That’s what amateurs do. And young amateurs at that. Most of us ride around in a little electric cart or, if we do walk 18, use a pull cart. (Speaking of that, I love my pull-cart. It comes from Sun Mountain and is a godsend when I play a course that is walk-able. Like my shots, however, it does pull to the left a bit.)

But there was Ricky Fowler, bending over and picking up his bag, like the guys at Downriver, after hitting a 157-yard pitching wedge, like no one who has ever played Downriver. It made for interesting television.

It almost made up for the sound issues, what with different commentators in different places, all trying to talk at once. It got better as the round went on, but many times two points were made simultaneously, rendering both unintelligible. You know, like most Paul Azinger comments are every broadcast.

The real star, however, was Seminole. It’s a legendary Donald Ross (think Pinehurst) designed course north of Palm Beach, Florida. Built for E.F. Hutton back before The Great Depression, the club has been the it-place for the scions of business for years – and the home of the legendary springtime member-pro tournament.

Winning that one-day event at Seminole is like winning another major. Well, a Players, maybe. But you get the picture. It’s the biggest deal in golf no one has ever seen. And the course has been a mystery for everyone except the super rich – Tom Brady just joined – forever.

Now it isn’t.

Like a lot of mystery, it probably didn’t do the course any favors to be revealed. It turned out to be nothing spectacular. Not Cypress Point – another legendary track rarely seen – that’s for sure. The course’s most impressive feature? Maybe it’s the hedge that lines the west side, probably built to keep the riffraff out. It looks as if it’s been growing since the 1920s.

Or maybe it’s the sand traps, built to mimic ocean waves. There are as many of them as waves in a tropical storm at sea, which seems appropriate as the course runs next to the Atlantic Ocean. But, other than some impressive greens, Seminole (which has a slight Spokane connection) didn’t look much different than dozens of other seaside courses in the world – other than, maybe, the gigantic clubhouse that dominated the course.

No matter. Golf was on TV. Real golf. Birdies, many by Fowler. Great shots, many by McIlroy. And a lone, forlorn figure walking down the waste area with his ball in his pocket, usually Dustin Johnson.

All of which was unknowable seconds before it happened. It was live sports. And it was glorious.

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WSU: Around the Pac-12, UCLA has made its decision on a new athletic director. Now will it support Martin Jarmond? Jon Wilner’s points about the school in this column are spot on. … An Oregon State basketball player is rehabbing an injury at home. … Remember Brandon Williams, the point guard who picked Arizona over Gonzaga? He’s trying to come back from an injury that cost him an entire season. … Yes, college football coaches are still recruiting.

EWU: Today is the 40th anniversary of Mount St. Helen’s eruption – and the ensuing ash fallout that buried Eastern Washington. Also almost buried in the fallout were the hopes of the Eagles’ track team. Ryan Collingwood recounts the groups’ journey to the NAIA national tournament in Texas, a journey that was almost canceled before it began. … CCS star McKenna Russell is headed to Cheney. Her letter-of-intent signing headlines our local briefs.

Idaho: Paul Petrino thinks receiver Jeff Cotton has what it takes to stick in the NFL. A big part of that is his special teams ability and experience.

Preps: By taking Saturday off, we missed this Seattle Times story on possible State basketball tournament changes.

Seahawks: Quinton Dunbar bonded out of jail yesterday and took to social media to proclaim his innocence.

Sounders: Seattle is set to begin workouts today.

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• We didn’t live in Spokane in May of 1980. Kim and I were in our first year of marriage, living in a small Westminster, Calif., apartment. She was attending nursing school at Golden West CC and working nights as a waitress at Don Jose’s. I was working days at Chapman College and nights at The Register. In other words, we were really busy. Which is why I hardly remember the mountain blowing its top. Though I do remember everyone’s stories of their experiences, which they were eager to share with Spokane newcomers in 1983. Until later …