When John Mellencamp wasn’t ripping on Bush in a concert, Dan Quayle wasn’t walking out on Mellencamp and Charles Barkley wasn’t declaring that “Conservative means discriminatory", there was some actual golf played at the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe.

This included a long drive contest in which Paul O’Neill, the heart of the Yankees World Series dynasty of recent past, uncorked a reported 357-yard drive. Which should have those fat guys on the Long Drive Tour howling to their commissioner/ball cleaner (believe that’s TravelGolf.com’s own William K. Wolfrum) the way Henry Aaron’s people are howling to Bud Selig.

Now, I’m not saying that the celebrity drives were distance enhanced … but whoever measured the yardage out on Edgewood Tahoe’s first hole for the contest understands math about as well as soccer icon David Beckham. And Beckham famously admitted that his 6-year-old son Brooklyn’s math homework was too tough for him.

I watched most of this long drive contest and saw obscure comedian Anthony Anderson get credited with a 242-yard drive and worse yet, built NFL tight end Todd Heap get gifted with a 257-yard drive on shots that appeared to go about where I drove the ball playing Edgewood. Believe me, I wasn’t blasting it 250 with my non NFL tight end frame.

They might as well have put the 100-yard target right next to the tee for how accurate these measurements were. When Anderson lost his driver on one attempted bomb, sending it flying over fans’ heads into a bush farther up than where his ball landed, he should have shouted out, “300 yards baby!” Surely, he would have been credited with it.

Look, I know celebrities need their egos massaged. But this is getting embarrassing. Paul O’Neill should be above this kind of thing. Would Babe Ruth approve? OK, probably. As long as a hot dog was included.

But an inflated celebrity long drive contest … What’s next, professional wrestling turns out to be less than authentic?

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