GOLF LEADS MICHAELS DOWN THE PATH.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

Halfway through his round of golf at Sherwood Country Club on Wednesday, Al Michaels was asked how his first nine holes went.

``Four under,'' the ABC sportscaster said with that resonance in his voice we've all come to take as one of the most credible in the business.

Jeez. No kidding?

``Four under a rock, three in the water. . .'' Michaels said without breaking a smile, showing he could not only handle the sticks but the shtick that goes with serious playing.

Do you believe in mulligans? Michaels doesn't.

Since the Brentwood resident took up the game four years ago and subsequently landed a membership at the Bel Air County Club - and he's broken 90 a couple of times, too - Michaels wants to be more than a weekend hacker as a player. And, as it turns out, more than another hack golf broadcaster.

Michaels shot several arrow-perfect drives at Sherwood as homework after drawing his first real golf assignment. He'll host the ``Shootout at Sherwood'' match-play event two weeks from Monday, which gives Tiger Woods and David Duval the honor of being in the first prime-time golf event to be shown live on network television.

A made-for-TV gimmick? No one disputes it. Not even Michaels, known more for his coverage of high-profile events rather than frivolous sports fodder. Although the truth comes out - the first ABC event he did as a broadcaster for ``Wide World of Sports'' was barrel jumping, from some remote spot in Illinois.

ABC will cover the gimmick with more than twice as many announcers as participants when you throw Mike Tirico, Jimmy Roberts, Judy Rankin and Curtis Strange into the mix. And Michaels claims his reputation will be untarnished by his doing the ``Monday Night Golf'' broadcast that'll go live to the East Coast at 8 p.m. (5 p.m. in the West) on Aug. 2.

``I don't think this devaluates the game at all,'' said Michaels, who starts his 13th season on ``Monday Night Football'' with the NFL Hall of Fame game between Cleveland and Dallas a week after the golf event. He will run with the ball all the way to the network's Super Bowl coverage from Atlanta in late January.

``I understand the criticism since the event was announced, but does the Home Run Derby we all watched this week really devaluate baseball? Everyone wants to see Ken Griffey Jr. hit shots out of Fenway Park.

``With this event, it's the two golfers with the most cachet going head-to-head and providing entertainment. TV is an entertainment business. Every golfer I know said it sounds like a pretty neat event and they're asking me to get them passes.''

Even if Woods and Duval end up in the same twosome playing for the British Open title Sunday in front of ABC's cameras in Scotland, the Sherwood event won't be anticlimactic, Michaels said.

``It might even be enhanced,'' he said. ``No one is saying this event is going to prove who's the best golfer in the world. I know this course will play very well on television. We just hope it's close and there's some drama.''

Note to Duval: You might want to have a pregnant wife standing by a la Phil Mickelson, in case the match gets away from you.

More stars on parade: The surprise isn't that Fox's coverage of Tuesday's Major League Baseball All-Star Game drew ratings that were nine percent lower than last year's contest carried by NBC. It's that anyone stayed around to watch the anticlimactic exhibition at all after the emotional pregame Ted Williams lovefest.

Those who did stick around were treated by the usual Fox fare of catcher-cam moments, Joe Buck barbs and Bob Brenly bushwhacking that made it worth not giving into the temptation to flip over to ESPN's replay of the Women's World Cup finale. (It's no wonder ESPN and MLB are in a dispute when the cable network goes to such measures to try to lure viewers from the Midsummer Classic with more feminine flagwaving).

By the numbers, All-Star the game did a 12.0 national rating and 22 share (L.A. was right on that mark at 11.8/21). The pregame show (locally from 5 p.m. to 5:51 p.m.) actually had a lower mark nationally than the game (10.5), but it was the highest-rated pregame in five years. L.A., however, was less impressed; the 8.8/19 mark was a drop from NBC's pregame of '98 (9.0/22).

As usual, ratings might measure quantity but will forever fail to indicate quality.

Major-league props must go to pregame-show producer Gary Lang, game producer Michael Weismann and director Bill Webb for making the viewer feel as if he were a member of the inner circle listening to Williams greet players like Mark McGwire (``Let me ask you: Do you smell the wood burn from your bat when you hit a foul ball?'') and Tony Gwynn as they came by to pay their respects.

Credit Lang with the montage of morphing player faces during the ``Field of Dreams'' segment and Webb for having the dumb luck to go live with catcher-cam on Jim Thome's at-bat when he lined a single to center to drive in the game's first run.

SOUND BYTES By Tom Hoffarth

WHAT SMOKES

The third and final rounds this weekend of the Ameritech Senior Open will be worth gazing at on CBS after the British Open on ABC if only to see what kind of coverage the Big Eye network gives its own famed course analyst Gary McCord as he plays the event. Says broadcast pal David Feherty: ``It's going to be somewhat difficult commenting on his game because it will be unprofessional to laugh and unprofessional to root for him, in which I will probably both be doing. . . . If Gary plays well on our broadcast and happens to win, forget about the other major being played this weekend. It will be a major for him.'' McCord's response: ``Every fat iron shot, pulled hooked drive and whiffed putt will be chronicled by my colleagues. Let hell week begin.''

Isn't that ducky? Mighty West Coasters skate away as the greatest benefactors from year one of the new ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 television contract with the NHL. Specifically, ESPN2's schedule is expanded to 102 regular-season games - four a week - and there are 26 West Coast prime-time games added.

Surfer magazine's 40th-anniversary collector's issue (Oct. '99), which focuses on the 25 most influential wave crashers of all time.

WHAT CHOKES

Media criticism that ABC's coverage of the Women's World Cup final was too processed American cheesy. Could we have seen more shots of the Chinese players agonizing during the penalty kicks? Wouldn't have hurt. But were the broadcasters (particularly J.P. Dellacamera) too rah-rah for the U.S.? That hardly came across on our TV audio. If you want a real gauge of media boosterism disguised as giving readers what they wanted, every Sunday newspaper in America was guilty. Although, maybe not as much as the latest cover of Sports Illustrated.

ESPN Classic shows the WWC final one more time Sunday at 2 p.m.

Is there a doctor in the house? Former journalist Barbara Walters has wrestled for the first network TV interview with Wimbledon semifinalist Alexandra Stevenson and mommy dearest Samantha, which will err during a very special edition of ``20/20 Friday'' next week. Babs' babbling was done Wednesday and the network will release transcripts next week when it comes closer to promoting the nonevent. Stay tuned to ``Dateline NBC'' for supplemental Julius Erving reaction.

AM-1150's next act of desperation will be attempting to lure Fox's Terry Bradshaw to host a show this fall. Here's a title idea that's available: ``Home Team with Terry Bradshaw.''

WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV

The top 10 Nielsen-rated sports events (with their share numbers) on L.A. television from July 8-14:

Event Date Station Rt/Sh. (x)

WWC final: U.S. vs. China 7/10 KABC 20.8/53

MLB All-Star game 7/13 KTTV 11.8/21

Tour de France  7/10 KABC 8.3/23

MLB: Seattle at Dodgers 7/10 KTLA 4.3/9

MLB: Seattle at Dodgers 7/9 KTLA 4.3/8

MLB: Home Run Derby 7/12 ESPN 3.9/8

MLB: Hitting Challenge 7/12 ESPN 3.2/6

WCC third place: Brazil-Norway 7/10 ESPN 2.9/10

MLB: Angels at Colorado 7/9 KCAL 2.9/6

NFL Quarterback Challenge 7/11 KCBS 2.7/8

Note: Wednesday's WNBA All-Star game on ESPN had a rating of 0.2.

(x) One rating point equals 50,092 TV homes in Los Angeles; a share is the percentage of all the TV sets in use at that time.

CAPTION(S):

2 Boxes

BOX: (1) SOUND BYTES By Tom Hoffarth (see text)

(2) WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV (see text)