So, Chris, you like the guy because he agrees with you about Michelle Wie? And because you saw him being nice to people on a golf course? And you admire him because he had the drive to succeed in the radio business? I think when history makes its judgment, those factors won’t weigh heavily.

This is a guy who I believe has done tremendous damage to America. He has poisoned the political dialogue by pandering to people’s selfishness and all their worst instincts. Limbaugh’s big contribution is that he helped make it impossible to solve the problems that plague the country. When people can’t listen to and understand the other person’s point of view, when they can’t compromise because they’re too wedded to an ideology, problems go unsolved. That’s the situation in America today.

To understand the Rush Limbaugh phenomenon, you’ve got to understand what moves people to listen to him: Fear.

Fear of losing that four-car garage stuffed with all the material possessions that won’t fit in the house. Fear of being one stroke of bad luck away from bankruptcy because of the fat mortgage, the fleet of $35,000 cars and all the crap we buy to give ourselves the temporary illusion of feeling better. And what if one day we can’t make the payments?

The only answer is to fight those “liberal spending programs” that threaten our false sense of security. Liberals - they’re responsible for our nagging state of unease. So what if they’re fellow Americans? They’re still the enemy.

Here’s why I have zero respect for Rush Limbaugh: The man is a coward. Do you ever hear a dissenting voice on his show, much less a debate? Not a chance, because his producers know that when a well-informed person gets the opportunity to debate issues with him, Rush will fall apart like a cardboard suitcase. That’s why they stack the show with brown-nosing “dittoheads” calling to congratulate their favorite self-satisfied radio host.

The listeners know it’s unfair and one-sided, but they excuse it because it saves them the discomfort of hearing an opposing point of view. It’s more reassuring to listen to Limbaugh and Fox News, who know exactly what many white middle-class Americans in the suburbs fear and pander to it. And this is one reason America is going downhill - because Limbaugh and his ilk are greasing the skids. To my mind, he’s contemptible.

The gloves drew admiring stares at the merchandise show, and now they’re sold in five countries and 12 states. The biggest problem for the owners of the company is convincing the men who run pro shops that a woman would spend $49 when she can buy a good glove for $15.

I think these pro-shop managers don’t understand dames. As long as a man supplies the money, women love to spend dough on high-end accessories. Also, this is a way for a fellow to buy his girlfriend, wife or daughter a luxury gift withhout springing for something expensive, like jewelry.

Tina Siebenman, owner of Sassy Swings, says trends in women’s golfwear are changing. She says women don’t want to wear mannish-looking clothing on the golf course anymore. I hope she’s right.

Don’t you think Michelle Wie would look slick in one of these gloves?

David Howell, billed as the “Tiger Tamer” and currently 14th in the world, is the favorite, but Ed Loar, an All-American from Oklahoma State and Liang Wen-chong of China lead the field after the first round, tied at 10-under-par 62. This tournament could be won with a total score of under 260 because several of the par 5’s are easily reached in two, and several par 4’s are shorter than 350 yards.

I’m sure the players will enjoy the week on Hainan Island because of that famous Asian hospitality and service, and because the beaches – just a short walk from the golf course – are comparable to those at Phuket and the Hawaiian Islands.

Fifteen years ago, Hainan didn’t have much industry besides coconuts. It’s still a developing island, the kind of place where you still see people sitting in front of thatched roof houses chewing betel nut.

What you don’t hear on the telecast is that Hainan Island carries a reputation as one of Asia’s primary destinations for sex tourism. Because the government winks at law enforcement, thousands of girls from the Chinese mainland come here to earn money the old-fashioned way.

So I guess it’s OK for a coach to offend the fans, including families, sitting near him, but it’s not acceptable for the rest of us. Can’t anyone see the hypocrisy in that? Who says coaches should get a free pass?

I used to attend Denver Nuggets games when Doug Moe was their coach. You never heard such a blast of cursing in your life. The difference between Moe and Coach K is that Moe was coaching professionals, not college kids. Another thing, Moe never took himself seriously and he realized that part of his job was to talk to the press. Thus, he was always popular with reporters. Bobby Knight was another story. I attended a press conference he gave at an NCAA regional tournament in Denver. He was the nastiest, rudest and most insulting bastard I ever came across. Nobody provoked him. The guy is just a weirdo, a bully and a jerk.

Economists say that the high savings rate in China – an estimated 38 percent of GDP since 1978 – is one big reason for the economic boom. Chinese are big believers in investment, especially in real estate. They’ll save money to buy a building, and then they’ll buy another, and so on – even if it means all the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents have to live under one roof to contribute to the savings. Contrast that with America’s negative savings rate and you can see which way history is going.

Last year U.S. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow went to China with a message: Your savings rate is too high. Use credit cards. Go into debt like we do. The Chinese must have rolled over laughing when they heard that.

Now that golf is popular in China, in a few years we’ll see some great Chinese players competing on the PGA Tour. These are serious people. They’re eating our lunch in the world economy, and maybe one day we’ll see it on the golf course, too.

PGA tournaments, he says, are about “getting sunburned at the rich man’s country club” and then he goes on to talk about the players. “I think Greg Norman still sells some tickets. (The interview was in 2001.) Maybe Fred Couples and Phil Mickelson. All the others you lump together. Part of the spectacle.”

I pretty much agree with Jenkins and that’s why I’m joining W.K. Wolfrum on the Camilo Villegas bandwagon. I think it’s great for golf that this expressive young Colombian is starting to succeed in his rookie year on the PGA Tour. Not only does the game need more young players to compete with Woods, the game also needs more personality and showmanship, which is something Villegas has got in spades.

Tiger may indeed be the greatest golfer of all time, but to me he is not really a charismatic presence. When I watch him he seems so burdened by the quest for perfection and the drive to win that he often looks downright unhappy playing what is, after all, a game. Villegas is the anti-Tiger. He brings a much-appreciated joie de vivre to golf. If the Colombian continues to enjoy success, watching these tournaments week after week is going to be more fun for all of us.

And it would be a bonus if J.B. Holmes, that long-slamming country boy who showed such promise in winning the FBR Open, turns out to be the real deal. The jury’s still out on both Holmes and Villegas, but I’m rooting like mad for both boys.

I watched the stunningly listless broadcast on Thai satellite TV. By the ninth hole, many of the Europeans were rather unattractively bathed in sweat, a condition which afflicts every white golfer in Southeast Asia. With the problems these tournaments are having in attracting sponsors, maybe somebody should approach
Bristol-Myers Squibb, the makers of Ban Roll-On. Maybe that company would agree to support a European Tour event in which none of the stars from Europe deign to make an appearance.

Defending champion, England’s Nick Dougherty, carded an opening round 69, four shots behind Singaporean pro Mardan Mamat. The winner of last week’s Indonesia Open, Simon Dyson of England, stumbled slightly with a one over par 73.

The real anti-climax was supplied by Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand, who fell apart with a 41 on the back nine for a 76. The Thai star, who needed a win here for any hope of an invitation to the Masters in Augusta, can forget about that now.

The first-round action attracted a very sparse gallery. I wonder how long this tour in Asia can be sustained.

This is an issue that has plagued the European Tour for years. Its lenient rules state that tour members must participate in 11 European-sanctioned tournaments to remain in good stead. However, those include events co-sanctioned with the PGA such as the majors and the World Golf Championships, which will be played only in the United States for the foreseeable future.

Thus, the top European players can skip Asia, and many do. Some may deign to enter the Johnnie Walker Classic in Australia, or the Dubai Desert Classic, where purses are larger and conditions tend to be better. But most are nowhere to be seen when it’s time to play in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

It’s hard to blame the players when the money in Asia computes to about half the winnings at PGA events in the States. But as a fan of golf in Asia, I can only voice my disappointment. We must content ourselves with seeing the best Asian golfers compete with Europeans who, with some exceptions, fall into the second rank – good players all, but generally not the glamour boys. I can’t even remember what Sergio Garcia looks like!

In parting, I wish all the Europeans who grumble about the scheduling of WGC events in America would think again. If you really believe golf is a “world game,” why can’t you take a break from the big purses in California, Arizona and Florida and – just a little more often – support your tour in Asia?

Like most folks, I like to read about famous people in their unguarded moments. Some of the celebs come across on the website as genuinely nice people - like Teri Hatcher, Howard Stern, Katie Couric, Pedro Martinez, Joan Rivers, David Schwimmer, Drew Carey and, yes, Pete Rose and many more.

But then there are others – Dennis Miller, Bud Selig, Richard Simmons, and Jennifer Lopez, are you listening? - who come across as horrible jerks. And Russell Crowe …. well, that’s no surprise by now.

You might be surprised to learn that there isn’t much negative stuff on golfers, although one poster complains that Tiger Woods left him a $4 tip at Tony Roma’s in Orlando for a $125, two-and-a-half-hour meal. But that was a number of years ago.

The award for most generous tip goes to Bill Gates, who left $8,000 on the table at an Italian restaurant in Vancouver where he and his wife entertained 15 people and, including the wine and Champagne, the bill came to $12,000. That’s a 66 percent gratuity – not a bad night for the staff, each of whom took home nearly $900. Gates can afford it, obviously, but still ….

After reading this story, I’m starting to feel that GQ wasn’t fair to Phil when it published an article calling him one of the 10 most hated athletes by their peers. Maybe Phil’s peers can’t stand those large tips he leaves for waiters. Didn’t you know that many athletes are real cheapskates? I’ll give you one example: When he was a player, John Elway was famous among the wait people of Denver as a guy who would stiff you. Some star athletes feel that their presence alone is reward enough.

I’ve got to hand it to Mickelson. Having driven taxicabs and limousines in my day, I’ve always appreciated a rich guy who had empathy for the downtrodden. I’ll bet that every time Phil goes into a restaurant now, the waiters are going to fight over his table.

Lee, who is second in command to President Roh Moo-hyun, spent Wednesday on the golf course. Wednesday in Korea was a national holiday marking a 1919 civil uprising against colonialist Japan. It was also the first day of a nationwide railway strike, which had the whole country in disarray. Koreans expect their high government officials to work overtime during a crisis but Lee played golf anyway, which apparently was a big mistake in judgment.

It seems his golf partners were the same guys who made illegal contributions during the 2002 presidential election in which Roh and Lee were elected. Roh already had been forced to apologize for his subordinates’ actions in that previous scandal. If this golf course story gets worse, the Korean government could be on shaky ground.

President Roh was away on a working trip in Africa and hasn’t commented. Lee issued a statement apologizing for his “incautious” actions and said he would talk to the president when he returned from his trip. This was interpreted as a hint that he planned to resign.

Just imagine if we all had to quit our jobs for playing golf on our day off!

Simon Dyson of England shant complain. He shares the lead after two rounds with Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand. Dyson’s round was smooth and consistent while Thongchai weathered a wild one: He three-putted five greens but still carded a 68 thanks to two eagles and four birdies. Jai dee in Thai means “good heart.” He needed a good, strong heart on this day.

Thongchai is playing for more than just a win here. Currently he’s ranked 86th in the world but probably needs to be in the top 50 to reach his goal – an invitation to this year’s Masters at Augusta. Therefore, he may also need to win next week’s Singapore Masters tournament – and he might do it, too. Thongchai has clearly outclassed everyone on the tour for the last month.

Unfortunately, his success hasn’t extended beyond Asia. In the past he’s had problems playing in European cold weather and adjusting to European food. Most Thai people think if a dish isn’t hot and spicy, it doesn’t have any flavor. Plus, they insist on eating rice or noodles three times a day. The verb “to eat” in Thai for eat – ghin kow – literally means “eat rice.”

Thanks to the two-hour rain delay, 51 players didn’t complete their second round. Among those who didn’t finish was Stephen Dodd of Wales, who scored six under par for 13 holes, which puts him in a tie for third place with Ter-Chang Wang of Taipei.

Currently there are only nine golf courses in the country, but recently the government announced that a consortium of Japanese companies will invest $1.2 billion to build a “romantic town” with 30,000 villas, five-star hotels and, yes, a 36-hole golf course just a chip shot away from the city of Dalat. Groundbreaking is scheduled for June.

The beautiful city of Dalat in the Central Highlands has a year-round climate similar to summers in Denver, which is about as pleasant a climate as exists anywhere in the world. It’s a favorite spot for Vietnamese honeymooners – and dirt cheap. I stayed in a very commendable guest house for $10 per night.

The city already has one golf course – the 84-year-old Dalat Palace Golf Club. Built by the French colonialists to honor the last Vietnamese emperor, it fell into weedy disuse after the Americans’ defeat in 1975 and for years it served mostly as a trysting spot for lovers. A decade ago it was renovated.

Golf’s fortunes in Vietnam began to turn around when the Hanoi government joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, then Malaysia’s foreign minister and now its prime minister, advised Communist leaders that participating fully in ASEAN meant entertaining visitors and doing business on the golf course.

Soon after, the Vietnamese politburo issued a proclamation that golf was not only condoned but encouraged – which everyone interpreted to mean that polishing your short game no longer made you a candidate for a re-education camp.

Before long, Nick Faldo was designing the Ocean Dunes Golf Club in Phan Thiet, 150 miles from Saigon. That course has a signature par-three that Golf Magazine named one of the 500 most beautiful holes in the world.

The average Vietnamese laborer earns $40 a month, a little more than half what a Chinese laborer makes. Vietnamese tend to be aggressive and hard-working. That’s why Cisco System announced this week it’s opening a plant in Vietnam. Others are sure to follow. Take a tip from me and go as soon as you can. This fascinating and exotic part of the world is changing fast.

So I’ll be careful to mention the sponsor’s name of the PGA Tour.

So guess where the top European players will be playing? Certainly not in Jakarta, a hellhole comparable to, say, Lima as a place to be avoided at all cost. When I think of Jakarta, I remember that movie, “The Year of Living Dangerously” - which I’m sure most of the golfers scheduled to play this week have never seen or they wouldn’t have signed up for the tournament. That movie, starring Mel Gibson, did for Jakarta what “Psycho” did for showers. Enjoy Jakarta, indeed.

Because the field of Europeans is so weak the Enjoy Jakarta HSBC Indonesia Open shapes up as another probable triumph of Asian golfers. Most of the pre-tournament ink has been devoted to defending champion Thaworn Wiratchant and whether he can duplicate last year’s surprise win. To do so he’ll have to fend off his more highly-regarded Thai countryman, Thongchai Jaidee or those Indian favorites, Jyoti Randhawa and Shiv Kapur. (While these are not household names where you live, they’re nevertheless fine players.)

But wait! Stop the presses! There’s yet another Thai that has many Asian golf fans excited these days – 17-year-old Chinarat Phadungsil, the reigning World Junior Champion. While still an amateur, Chinarat was the youngest winner in the history of the Asian Tour by capturing the 2006 Double A International Open. The teenage sensation turned pro after that victory and two weeks ago he finished tied for sixth at the Malaysian Open.

I plan to enjoy the Enjoy Jakarta HSBC Indonesia Open from my living room in Thailand. Unless an early monsoon screws up my satellite reception, in which case I’ll enjoy the rain.

What we are dealing with here is a taboo. I don’t like taboos. Here’s how Webster’s defines a taboo: “The stinking turd on the carpet that everybody is too polite to smell.”

Every one of you, including the guy who called me a loser, knows it’s undignified for Arnold to play golf in his present state of deterioration. Have you looked at him play golf lately? He is all stooped over. He can barely hit the ball 200 yards. He is not as mentally sharp as he once was. It’s just awful to watch.

Arnold, in his heyday, was a matinee idol. Even other professional athletes and stars hero-worshipped him. I once interviewed Duke Snider, the great centerfielder for the Dodgers, who told me that meeting Arnold Palmer had been his lifelong dream.

Arnold’s problem is he loves public adulation and doesn’t want to give it up. I had hoped that after his farewell appearances at the Masters and U.S. Open, he’d have sense enough to quit. Unfortunately, the enablers who sponsor Skins Games think they can use Arnold to attract a few more viewers.

Those of you who think Arnold should continue playing golf on TV, answer these questions for me.

1) Do you really enjoy watching Arnold play golf now? If you enjoy it, you have no feeling for the man who once was.

2) Just how much further downhill must Arnie drift before enough is enough? What kinds of infirmities must he suffer before we remove him from the television cameras?

3) Do you think that Jack Nicklaus would allow himself to play golf on TV when he’s in the shape Arnold’s in? I will bet you that Jack is embarrassed for Arnold. As well he should be.

If Arnold is too far gone to realize what a fool he’s making of himself, the sponsors of these Skins Games should. This was a virile and mighty athlete. Let’s celebrate what he was by dropping the curtain on the sad clown act he’s got now.