The 2001 PGA Merchandise Show

Easily bypassed, downtown Orlando has always provided an oasis to the sprawl. It's changing, of course, as places do. A lifeless fern bar is now a mirrored fitness center. The enormous ramshackle youth hostel is gone, reopened after closing and a (suspicious?) fire. It's now a boutique hotel with a "café" on the ground floor that serves chocolate chip bagels. When you order a cup of coffee, they ask if you want sprinkles.

Lake Eola is still a lovely spot, well used by strollers and joggers, if a sign somewhat dampens the mood. Citing city code section 18.09 (A) and (O), it reads: "DO NOT LIE OR OTHERWISE BE IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION ON A PARK BENCH. DO NOT SLEEP OR REMAIN IN ANY BUSHES, SHRUBS OR FOLIAGE."

So much for a snooze in a horizontal position. Thank God for the Bull & Bush! The venerable pub remains next to the T.G. Lee Dairy on Robinson Street. So should it ever be. True, the European Ryder Cup team picture and the signed photo of Sandy Lyle donning the green jacket are gone. And, true, cows no longer graze in the shadow of the industrial dairy towers, but that was long ago.

These developments and gentrification's creep caused me concern at one time but no longer. The faded Union Jack tie still hangs limply behind the bar. Print-outs of British soccer news and pool results are taped above the urinals. Brits still man the place, silently pulling pints and delivering them to arriving regulars without a word between them. All is as it should be. In contrast to so many of the places geared to tourists, the B&B isn't so much a theme but a place. The bar is never too crowded, always comfortable and convivial, in a way that British pubs seem to have it all over the American equivalent.

I took Gil Capps there once. A North Carolinian, Gil sits alongside Johnny Miller on the NBC telecasts. For some reason he's an enormous Newcastle United supporter. He loved the place. The grilled sandwiches, I'm pleased to report, are still as tasty as I remembered; vinegar is still brought out for the chips.

The Bull & Bush is sorely needed after a day at the PGA Merchandise Show. It's quiet enough to hold a conversation and cozy enough to quell the frenzy of the world's largest trade show. Repeated doses of Guinness and Old Speckled Hen help. (The Bull & Bush won a perfect pint award from Guinness in 1998.) I've written stories in the plush booths and always enjoy visiting with the regulars who wonder how I found it. I visit this bar one day, rather one evening, a year, and have done so for the last ten years. Every time I have to go to Orlando, I go to the Bull & Bush. Thursday is darts night. The B&B soothes frayed nerves and the PGA Show is hard on the sensitive nature. One leaves the sterile confines of the Orlando Convention Center in need of a shower, not so much to wash away the grime but the excess of what once was a simple game. It seems to cling to the skin clogging the pores.

The prolific Indian diarist Ved Mehta, I recall, took a job at an Arkansas ice cream plant. Not more than a boy, and blind, he was excited at the prospect of being around all that ice cream. When he mentioned as much to an older coworker, he was immediately grabbed and placed under a spigot of flowing vanilla. That cured him of his craving. One goes through the same kind of experience traversing the wares of 1,500 exhibitors, a half-mile across. All golf, all for sale, much of it, frankly, hard to believe.

When one looks past the spiritual stain of the hard sell (as one must) and enters into the spirit of the thing, the variety of "stuff" truly rivals the fish in the ocean and the birds in the sky.

There are the Honma $20,000 set of LB280 irons (4-SW), and the low-rider/Harley/golf cart. I watched a straight-faced barker extoll the virtues of a pill that guarantees lower scores. (There's also a companion golf drink that "boosts distance, club head speed & stamina!") There is a hard plastic breastplate swing trainer. And tees! Lots of different kinds of tees. One, the Flex-Tee, is made in Korea. "It will never fly away." I was taken with the touch of poetry on the back of the package. "It won't break. It will never fly away. It feels like hitting a ball that's sitting on air." There are tees made from corn and wheat, laser engraved aluminum, nylon and rubber. One has a built-in directional arrow, another has a colored plastic semi-circle large enough to hold a ball.

Golf is literally in the air, electrified, amplified, celebrated.
Some blurred memories and smudged notations:

"In the wind, it's almost a club longer." (Almost?)

"I think you could improve by playing the proper ball." (From an earnest video image of Ray Floyd.)

"Give blood, play golf. It's a contact sport." (This on a t-shirt with a red cross splattered in blood.)

"Warm balls feel better." (A pitch for a portable ball heater.)

"I've never had so much fun since I put these in my bag." (From Ken Venturi; I neglected to write down what "these" were.)

"My favorite feature of the Nike Tour Accuracy golf ball is the way its ionomer layer makes the core firmer and lessens spin with the driver and longer clubs, thereby increasing distance. What's yours?" (This on the back of the bus seat headrest. The shuttle bus was draped in a Nike ad.)

"We know cars. We know drivers too." (From Porsche Golf. Yes? So . . .this means, what, exactly?)

"Recommended by golf great Dow Finsterwald." (For the cautious, the golf great endorses the Tee Tops foul weather tee stand.)

"The mind works in pictures, not in words. . . Have to learn to turn havetas into wantas." (Canadian swing savant Moe Norman during a demonstration.)

After awhile, numbness sets in. It's not that the show is not worth the effort; it is. It's quite wonderful in its way, and exciting, a truly international day at the market. Every golfer should have the chance to momentarily stick his head under the spigot. It's just that the golfer who doesn't think of himself as a consumer first and foremost takes a bruising.

Incidentally, the Bull & Bush is open every day at 4 p.m. Pub opens earlier for special events and soccer games.

The 2000 Open at St. Andrews
Southern Pines, North Carolina