Hansen: Putterin' around, reflecting on true class

Item I: Early Sunday morning, for the grand sum of $19.46, I paid for a tee time at Silverbell Golf Course and was greeted by a U.S. Open experience that exceeded the cosmic distress of Chambers Bay.

Putting on Silverbell’s greens was like choppin’ broccoli. Skateboarding on rocks was easier. Fairway surfaces were similarly impoverished. The bunkers were choked with water, some of them plagued by algae.

The next time someone watches an aberrant U.S. Open and says the course is unplayable, I will refer them to one of Tucson’s summer-suffering muni courses. The potential for heatstroke that accompanies a foolhardy, bag-carrying amateur, is included in the $19.46.

Item II: My final (and best) Steve Kerr story of the season:

He is the brother-in-law of former Amphitheater High School and UA distance running standout Rachel Brennan. In the summer of 1995, Rachel fell from the back of a friend’s motorcycle in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and suffered a horrific brain injury.

Brennan was in a coma for three months. She would never again be “normal.”

On Thanksgiving night that year, even though Kerr was a second-year Chicago Bull with no championship rings and little gravitas, Kerr knew that Rachel and her mother, former UA professor Karen Brennan, would be watching the Bulls-Utah Jazz game.

When Kerr was inserted into the game, the play-by-play man said “Steve asks us to send his love and best wishes to his sister-in-law, Rachel Brennan, who is recovering from a motorcycle accident at the University of Utah hospital.”

In the hospital room, Rachel beamed. “I’m famous,” she said.

Seven years later, in Karen Brennan’s book “Being With Rachel,” she wrote: “If I had to order a son-in-law from heaven, it would be Steve. He’s funny, smart, a terrific father and husband, as well as sensitive and perceptive.”

Not a word about basketball. Just Steve Kerr being Steve Kerr.

Item III: If there was any controversy about thoroughbred trainer Bob Baffert’s epic Triple Crown victory, it was during American Pharoah’s Belmont Stakes victory. Baffert agreed to let man dressed in a Burger King outfit stand near him and his family during the race.

Burger King paid Baffert $200,000 for what turned out to be about 10 seconds of TV exposure.

Even in an uncultivated business like horse racing, it was excessive.

Unlike NFL and NBA players, Baffert’s net worth is undocumented publicly, but some in the horse racing industry estimate he earns close to $10 million a year. He has three homes, two in the greater Los Angeles area and another near the Del Mar Racetrack.

Baffert declined Burger King’s offer of $100,000 to have their ‘’mascot” stand near him at the Kentucky Derby, but accepted the $200,000 at the Belmont Stakes. To defuse the controversy, Baffert later told Sports Illustrated he will donate $200,000 to charity.

To me, a Whopper may never taste as good again.

Item IV: In Andre Iguodala’s final basketball season at Arizona, 2003-04, there was little to suggest he would go on to be an NBA All-Star, an Olympic gold medalist and, ultimately, the NBA Finals MVP.

He was never the Pac-10’s Player of the Week. He wasn’t among the league’s 10 leading scorers. The conference ’04 player of the year was Stanford’s Josh Childress, who was selected sixth overall in that year’s NBA draft, three spots in front of Iguodala.

ASU’s Ike Diogu, Washington’s Nate Robinson, Cal’s Leon Powe and Oregon’s Luke Jackson received more acclaim. Iguodala was also drafted behind BYU center Rafael Araujo, who averaged 2.8 points in a brief three-year NBA career.

The draft is full of errors and miscalculations.

After 11 seasons, Iguodala leads all of those from the 2004 draft class in minutes played. At the conclusion of his current contract, he will have been paid $121 million, or $90 million more than player of the year Childress, who started just three NBA games since 2007 and retired a year ago.

Item last: Tiger Woods was 32 when he won the 2008 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at Dove Mountain. He was so dominant that he closed out finals opponent Stewart Cink on the 11th hole. Those who paid hundreds (and thousands) of dollars to watch Woods at the 13th hole party suites didn’t see Woods hit a shot.

That’s how good he was.

Now, at 39, Woods can’t seem to get to the 13th hole. Should we be surprised?

At 39, Michael Jordan retired in a Washington Wizards uniform. He averaged 20 points against a career average of 31, and didn’t start 15 games.

At 39, Muhammad Ali lost a unanimous decision to undistinguished Trevor Berbick. Ali then retired. It was the only time in his career he lost back-to-back fights.

At 39, Joe Montana became a television analyst.

At 39, Wayne Gretzky, a man who once scored 69 goals in an NHL season, was coming off a year in which he scored 10 goals. He retired.

At 39, Babe Ruth was released by the Yankees. At 40, in a Boston Braves uniform, Babe hit .181.

Tiger is now hitting .181.