The paper today carried a story about children's fears of flying. It took me back to a family trip when I was in second grade, a ski charter to Austria.

The trip created so much happy fuss at school. It was a first, I'm sure. Imagine going all the way to Europe. A friend's mother sewed together a snowman with candy in the little pockets. There was a class party. No one had yet taken such an exciting trip. I'm sure I was scared but the festive reaction calmed me and made me feel very special. I'm grateful to have been exposed at such a tender age to travel and other countries. I may have been nervous about being so far from home but I don't think I was exactly scared, certainly not in the way the children in the article today were depicted.

Even before the 11th, long before, traveling had lost its luster for me, but I still treasure the exposure to things new and different. It pains me now to think that seven-year olds, perhaps much more worldly wise than I was at their age, may not get to enjoy the positive experience of seeing life in the larger world through the eyes of innocence.

From the hearth: Harvey Penick's birthday is this month. LPGA player, and former Penick student, Cindy Figg-Currier tells the following story, one of her favorites, about a visit to Harvey's grave.

It was the first anniversary of his death; his birthday is October 23rd. So I picked up Helen and said, "Let's go over where the gravesite is. I'd not been there. Could you show me?"

Between the two of us, trying to find it was quite an adventure. We got a map and drove around for five or 10 minutes and finally found it. It's right under a nice live oak tree.

I'd just gone to Home Depot or some place and picked up some flowers, and I wasn't even thinking. And I said, "Here let's plant some." And what did I have? I had my golf clubs in the back, a golf ball box, and we used, she used, an 8-iron like a hoe to dig the hole. And then we took the golf ball box and went and got some water.

And we planted those flowers and each left a golf ball, so it was very appropriate. Harvey was chuckling, I think.

Dan O'Neill was covering the World Golf Championship the week of September 11th. Several players had not yet made it to St. Louis and would not in view of the blanket grounding.

Whether sporting events should be played in the wake of tragedy was on everyone's mind in the aftermath of the attacks. We talked about that fine line, between decency and what many people perceived as "giving in" to terrorism.

I can tell you most the players I talked to here in St. Louis wanted to play the tournament, and they thought that playing was the right thing to do.

It's not that they felt that canceling the tournament would be "wrong," or not that they took issue with the action that was taken. In an informal poll of the players, they would've liked to have played. I think, for instance, Jerry Kelly made a very good point. He said that, at this point, they would be providing a service. They would be giving people, if only for a couple hours in the afternoon, a little bit of a diversion, a little bit of something to smile about maybe, and take them away from the feelings that otherwise were taking place. He felt that was important.

I talked to a couple of the Irish players, Paul McGinley and Padraig Harrington. Now these are two guys who've grown up in Ireland where terrorism takes place on a regular basis, although they're from Dublin. Still they're affected by what takes place in Northern Ireland. They felt the thing to do was to play because to not play was to let the terrorists win, to let them alter your lives and eventually you have to get on with your lives, and go and live the way you living previously and do the things you do. They felt that was the thing to do.

THR: Harrington said, "You're only giving in by stopping. There's a very difficult line between saying, 'Yes, we're stopping to show respect to those who've been killed in what has happened,' and saying 'No, it's a very difficult thing but you're only going to give in to more of these terrible acts by stopping.'

Dan O'Neill: That basically was the tone set by many of the Europeans, although I will tell you that this, even for people who had experienced this type of thing in their own country, this was something they'd never experienced. Miguel Jimenez was absolutely stunned. Hard for him to even talk about it. And there's been plenty of incidents in Spain. He said, "I just have a sick tingling feeling in my skin." So they were very, very affected, just as we all were.

THR: It must've been strange to sit down and write a column like you did the day after the attacks.

[Dan's column began: "Wednesday is the first day of the rest of our lives. It is the first day because for those of us who did not perish in an act of terrorism, those of us who absorb the horror that transpired on Tuesday, our lives will never be the same. Where sporting events fit in, what place recreation and entertainment has is unclear. In the big picture, matters of sport are inconsequential. To focus on them at a time such this is perhaps inappropriate and possibly disrespectful."]

Dan O'Neill: Very strange. In between running around and trying to get news on what was going on and talk to players and get their reactions, it was very strange but I actually asked to do that because I felt like even in the sports department that we needed to say something about what was going on, have a voice other than just report the news and other people's reactions. I think we had to have a reaction. So, well, it was very difficult to work period, to even think about sports on Tuesday, I'm glad I did it. How it turned out, I don't know but it was something I wanted to do. I'm glad it worked out.

© THR, 2001

Talking Points - Edition I - Ron Green
Talking Points - Edition II - Dr. Patrick Cohn
Talking Points - Edition III - Bradley S. Klein
Talking Points - Edition IV - Doug Sanders
Talking Points - Edition V - Curt Sampson
Talking Points - Edition VI - Geoff Shackelford
Talking Points - Edition VII - Bryan Gathright
Talking Points - Edition VIII - Tim Rosaforte, Ray March and Gary Player
Talking Points - Edition IX - Dave Pelz
Talking Points - Edition X - Don Wade
Talking Points - Edition XI - Sidney Matthew
Talking Points - Edition XII - Bud Shrake
Talking Points - Edition XIII - Betsy Rawls
Talking Points - Edition XIV - Roy McCoy, Cliff Rampy and Susan Naylor