Off the Wire

Roaming the news wires this morning for random golf stuff ...

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• Bill Murray has explained his recent alleged drunk-carting incident: he was giving friends a lift home.
  
  
  "I was driven to a party celebrating the event in a golf cart. The people I was with didn't wish to drive home, so I said I would drive.

  "I ended up stopping and dropping people off on the way, like a bus. As the last couple were getting out - who wished to be dropped off at a 7/11, which I didn't even know they had in Stockholm - they (the police) asked me to come over and assumed that I was drunk.

  "I tried to explain to them that I was a golfer."

  I'm going to try that if I'm ever pulled over by the cops. "But Officer, I'm a golfer."

  I do understand what Murray is saying, though. The police assumed he was drunk because he looked like a nut tooling around Downtown Stockholm in a golf cart. He told them, "I'm a golfer," explaining why he was in a golf cart. I'm not drunk or crazy, I'm a golfer.

• Australian Nick Flanagan a few weeks ago won his third Nationwide tourney of the year, meaning he gets the automatic bump to the PGA Tour. He tells the Melbourne newspaper The Age that the key to his success is a new attitude with "less aggro." Those Aussies talk funny. I think it's all the beer. (Do they drive carts through Downtown? Probably.)
• Two Oregon teens were arrested on suspicion of throwing golf balls off an overpass at cars down below. They were apprehended after trying to escape in a getaway cart. (I made that part up, but these nitwits are probably dumb enough that the idea would sound good to them.)
• Want to play in the Dunhill Links Championship in October? You can, if you outbid everyone else. The tournament is played at The Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns Golf Links. The auction, which is open to golfers around the world, is taking place online at www.qxl.co.uk/golf and runs through Sept. 21. The auctions raises money for the Pilgrim Foundation, supports the restoration of historic monuments and buildings in St. Andrews.
• Golf Digest ranks the Top 150 golfers from the world of finance. No surpise: Trip Kuehne, of the golfing Kuehne clan, with his sporty +4.9 handicap, is No. 1.