Torre's got the PGA lineup card
The PGA Tour begins today in Maui. When Joe Torre says so.
The new Dodgers manager officially has the title of "honorary starter" for the Tour's first event, the Mercedes Benz Championship -- meaning he will make the announcement at 12:44 p.m. today from the first tee at the Kapalua Plantation Course that it's time for Stephen Ames to take the first shot of the season.
The Golf Channel covers it live, starting at noon, and then returns at 3 p.m. to follow the rest of the first round.
For starters, Torre isn't sure why he was given the honor to start the Tour, considering how he describes his own golf game.
"It's ugly, it really is," said the 67-year-old. "At best, I'm in the mid 80s, upper 80s, but I haven't been there in a long time. You're talking to a guy who used to try to hit a 90 mile-an-hour fastball and for some reasons I'm thinking that ball is going to move so I have to hurry up and get to it."
Torre says he didn't really start playing until he was retired from playing and started to get into broadcasting.
"I thought when I got fired from my third managing job and I had all this time as a broadcaster I'd really pick this thing up in a hurry, but I could never really get over the hump, so to speak," he said.
Torre, recovering from knee replacement surgery, said he has played with many PGA players at this event over the years, and usually makes an annual trek to Hawaii after the baseball season to decompress.
"I remember playing a Pro‑Am here with Jim Furyk, and he waited until we got to the 16th hole to give me a little bit of instruction, which sort of aggravated me because I thought he could have started on the first hole and I would have been better off," Torre said.
The Golf Channel covers all four rounds of the Mercedes event live from 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with replays, today through Sunday.
Torre, in a conference call with a few media writers, also briefly addressed the recent Mitchell Report, saying he'd rather stay away from making any "in depth comments" about what he thinks of Roger Clemens or Andy Pettitte's inclusion in the investigation.
"I respect what Mr. Mitchell did, took a long time to get it done. He was very thorough. But when you're talking about 80 players that supposedly were using one thing or another, you know, to me it may be incomplete. It's really tough for me to comment.
"I obviously don't know enough information. The only thing I do know is that the most important thing for us in baseball is to make sure that when we take the field, that the fans trust us. So whatever we have to do to make that happen, I think that's important. But I'm going to ‑‑ I'm very close to Roger. When I say close to him, he was a great competitor for me, Andy the same way, and I certainly know they're two different individuals that only like to do the right thing. I'd just like to leave it at that."