Zoeller

WHEN PRO GOLFER Tiger Woods won the Masters two weeks ago, it was all I could do to suppress a yawn. Much ado was made about young Woods being the first black to win the Masters, but my basic reaction was, "Hey, it's only golf."Ah, yes, golf. That sport television networks use to deliberately bore football, baseball, basketball and hockey fans. That sport with all the action of a flea circus. I've seen funerals more exciting than golf.No, I just couldn't get swept up in the euphoria. An African-American winning the Masters is not a milestone.

What: 55th Masters championship, today through Sunday.Site: Augusta National Golf Club.Yardage: 6,905.Par: 36-3672.Format: 72 holes (18 daily) stroke play.Playoff (if necessary): Sudden death.Probable starting field: 88 -- 66 American pros, 3 American amateurs, 17 foreign pros, 2 foreign amateurs.Defending champion: Nick Faldo.Former champions in field: Tommy Aaron, George Archer, Seve Ballesteros, Gay Brewer, Billy Casper, Charles Coody, Ben Crenshaw, Nick Faldo, Ray Floyd, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Larry Mize, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Craig Stadler, Tom Watson, Fuzzy Zoeller.

PERTH, Australia - Colin Montgomerie fears he could be out of golf for months rather than weeks after his back problem acted up again in the second round of the Johnnie Walker Classic. Montgomerie, who was the European PGA Tour's Volvo Order of Merit player every year from 1994 to 2000, withdrew on the 12th hole yesterday and immediately made plans to see a London specialist. "I don't think I will be back for a long time," said Montgomerie, 38. Montgomerie was scratched from the English Open last June when the problem first flared up. Intensive treatment enabled him to play the U.S. Open the following week, but the injury resurfaced at the end of the season.

On November 23, 2005, LEO J., SR., devoted father of Angeline Mundie and husband Tony and the late Leo J. De Pazzo, Jr.; dear brother of Lena Russell, Lucy Zoeller, Louis De Pazzo and wife Irene; loving grandfather of Anthony Mundie; dear companion of Jean Mc Guigan. Also survived by two great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. Relatives and friends may gather at MILLER-DIPPEL FUNERAL HOME, INC., 6415 Belair Road, on Sunday only, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M., with a Christian Wake Service at 3:30 P.M. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Michael the Archangel Church (Overlea)

Irene May Keesler, a retired Johns Hopkins University executive assistant, died of heart failure Aug. 4 at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Timonium resident was 78. Born Irene Zoeller in Dumont, N.J., she attended the Scudder secretarial school in New York City and worked there for Gulf Oil Corp. She met and married Carl Von Elm, a Gulf Oil drilling engineer. They later divorced. In 1962, she married Don Keesler, a salesman for the old Manhattan Shirt Co., and moved to Baltimore, where she became executive assistant to George Owen, Hopkins' dean of arts and sciences at the Homewood campus.

With less than one week remaining until the Champions Tour returns to Baltimore for the final major of the season, tournament officials announced that the number of former Masters champions in the field has grown from five to nine. Ben Crenshaw, Sandy Lyle, Larry Mize and Fuzzy Zoeller have joined the field to take on Baltimore Country Club's Five Farms course for the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship. The first round is Thursday. Crenshaw, a two-time Masters champion (1984 and 1995)

SANDWICH, England -- A funny thing happened on the way to the hardest British Open ever. It rained. Royal St. George's got soft. And with the soft conditions came the fiercest first-round onslaught anyone can remember in the 122-year history of the tournament.A working title for opening day at the Open: Soggy Sandwich Very Edible.They ate Royal St. George's alive. Devoured it. Big names -- Greg Norman, Mark Calcavecchia, Fuzzy Zoeller -- and Peter Senior led the assault. Coming on like the Saxons came ashore here around the year 600, the foursome of Norman, Calcavecchia, Zoeller and Senior pillaged St. George's for 66s that were startling, even given the conditions.

HERE'S A FABLE: There's an ant and a grasshopper. They run into a golfer named Fuzzy and a Maryland politician named Nancy. "Shouldn't you be bigger?" the ant and the grasshopper ask. "We were," the humans reply. "We shrunk from embarrassment."It may not be the funniest punch line, but it's less ignorant than recent attempts at humor by Fuzzy Zoeller, the golfer who suggested that Tiger Woods leave his fried chicken at home, vTC and Del. Nancy Jacobs.She's the Harford County legislator who stuck her foot in her mouth with a joke about "the National Association for the Advancement of Green Bugs," a takeoff on the NAACP that she e-mailed to about 50 people.

On January 1, 2006 Lula Mae Burkindine of Glen Burnie; beloved wife of George W. Burkindine for 59 years; devoted mother of William H. Burkindine and his wife Karen, Gary K. Burkindine and his wife Dona, Colleen M. Pettus and her husband Edward, and the late Linda A. Burkindine; loving sister of the late Lillian Zoeller; caring aunt of Geraldine Burton; cherished grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of eleven. The family will receive visitors at the family owned Singleton Funeral Home, 1 Second Avenue S.W. (at Crain Hwy)

Charlotte Wade Todesco, 53, died unexpectedly Monday at her home in Joppatowne.Ms. Todesco, a native of Morgantown, W.Va., had worked for 20 years in a cooperative radiography program involving Essex Community College and Franklin Square Hospital. She eventually held the position of director of the radiography program.A mass of Christian burial will be at 10 a.m. Friday at Holy Spirit Church in Joppatowne, 540 Joppa Farm Road. Visitation will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at Lassahn Funeral Homes, 7401 Belair Road in Kingsville.