A great story:

Fiyalko is 92 and has macular degeneration. He’s been golfing for 60 years, but his 110-yard shot with a five iron on Jan. 10 was his first hole-in-one.

“I was just trying to put the ball on the green,” Fiyalko said.

Fiyalko tees off every Thursday with a group of golfers ranging in age from 70 to 90-plus. He used to have a seven handicap, but now he needs help lining up his shots and finding his golf balls because he only has peripheral vision in his right eye.

Jean Gehring was playing in his foursome and watched Fiyalko’s swing.

“I could tell it went on the green, (but) when we got up there I didn’t see it. I looked in the hole and there it was,” Gehring said.

To be playing golf at 92 is wonderful. To get a hole-in-one is something else again.

In a multicultural world, golf will only be as strong as its ability to attract players of both sexes, all ethnicities and with various disabilities.

Founded by an African American woman, Debert Cook, The African American Golfers Digest has at least two of those bases covered.

Or maybe all three. On their winter issue is a photo of Kevin Hall, the deaf, African American golfer.

Now that really speaks to me. I’m a “profoundly deaf” (the technical term) Native American. But I’m here to tell you that being deaf is not a handicap in golf. Cell phones ringing? Camera clicks? Crickets? Birds? I have no idea what those things sound like, although I’ve played with golfers who have complained about all of those, and more.

In a mystery worth of Cassie Burdette, Michigan State University junior Rylan Cotter was found dead on a golf course in Indiana.

Police say a body found last week on an Indiana golf course is that of a Michigan State University student.

The body of 20-year-old Rylan Cotter was found fully-clothed on the course on Brassie Golf Course in Chesterton on Wednesday.

Golf club employees found no signs of foul play, but the Porter County Coroner says an autopsy shows the woman died of massive blunt trauma to the chest and abdomen.

The coroner still does not know whether the death was a homicide, a suicide, or an accident.

The details of her death aren’t the only mystery.

There are reports the student’s parents say they have “no clue whatsoever” why she would even be in Chesterton.

Her family lives in the Lansing, Michigan area, where she went to school.

This one bears watching.

The Colorado State University bookstores have pulled school logo ball markers from their shelves following accusations they were made with sweatshop labor.

CSU said it pulled the Team Golf products from the bookstore pending an investigation by the Fair Labor Association. CSU refuses to sell any licensed apparel or logo items made in questionable working conditions, said Mark Minor, CSU’s assistant vice president for public affairs.

In a statement, Minor noted that the allegations against Team Golf are just that - allegations - but said CSU immediately pulled any of the company’s items just to be sure.

“We have contacted our FLA representative, who says they have begun an investigation,” Minor said. “Until that investigation runs its course, and/or until the charges against Team Golf are either substantiated or proven false, CSU has suspended business operations with Team Golf including pulling any existing Team Golf inventory from the shelves of the CSU bookstore.”

If making things in questionable labor conditions is a rationale for pulling things from the shelves, then CSU had better remove the better part of its licensed apparel and the various logo trinkets. I haven’t been to CSU’s store recently (my father was a graduate, and we visited several times back in the 70s and 80s), but if it’s anything like UM bookstores, it’s full of stuff made in China. And by definition, that means poor working conditions.

My guess is that they’re picking on a small ball marker maker because Nike has too many lawyers. So instead, these moonbats sweep the stores clear of ball markers and then go home, feeling smug and satisfied that they’ve done their part for global justice ... while wearing their made-in-China t shirts, cargo pants and shoes, listening to their iPods (produced in China by women who make $50 a month) and driving their hybrid vehicles (whose batteries are produced in environmentally disastrous Chinese nickel processing sweatshops). 

In the wake of baseball’s steroid scandal, and the suspension of a couple of dozen Florida State players who were scamming a music history exam, it’s refreshing to find in golf a refuge from the cheaters.

The latest golfer to join the Honesty Hall of Fame is Brandt Snedeker. At last week’s Australian Open, Snedeker found himself in the rough on the 14th, and bent over to pick up a leaf. At that moment, the ball moved. Calling over partner Nick OHearn, Snedeker called a penalty on himself and took a double bogey six on the hole. He eventually ended up at nine under—one shot behind winner Craig Parry.

“I was trying to find out if there was any weight on the ball - I didn’t even try to move the leaf and the ball just moved,” Snedeker said.

“It was clear as day, there’s no ifs and or buts about it. I wouldn’t feel right not calling it on myself in a situation like that.

“Everybody has it happen to them once in their lifetime.”

That penalty stroke cost Snedeker nearly $200,000.

Bobby Jones, of course, once famously called a penalty on himself in the 1925 US Open, in spite of the fact that he was the only one who thought that the ball had moved. When asked why—when even tournament officials said there was no infraction—he had done so, Jones replied:

“You might as well praise me for not breaking into banks. There is only one way to play this game.”

Lucky for us, that spirit still pervades golf.

There’s a terrific column on this in the Sydney Morning Herald.