IT'S ALL PAR FOR THE COURSE.

Byline: TOM HOFFATH

PASADENA - Seen any lost balls? Say, like, a dozen of `em?

If I were out in some high fairway rough at Woodley Lakes stuck among a bunch of oak trees, this search would be much easier. Instead, I'm buried in a much bigger hazard -- a convention center -- trying to hunt down a factory-sealed, brand-new, red, white and blue box of Maxfli Noodles.

Let's retrace our strokes here.

It's the Southern California Fall Golf Show in Pasadena, with about 70 booths spread out from one hall or another, offering the wide-eyed weekend hacker everything from grips to gloves to getaway vacations, along with the usual array of oversized drivers, pristine clubs and peculiar putters.

There's really no better way to get a golf fix on a weekend without waiting for a tee time.

Here, I'm a gadget grabber. You got something that might not improve my game, but will at least keep me distracted during a frustrating round, we'll start a conversation.

Like, this guy with a table full of what looks like circular buffing rags you'd use to wax your car. But the GolfRound is a piece of material that you soak on one side, then fold twice into the shape of a pizza slice, and stick it in your pocket. The water repellant material keeps the moisture in so you can clean your ball or club heads while you're away from your bag towel. Just five bucks.

Cool. I'll take two.

Over there, a woman is explaining how what she's holding isn't a cellphone, but a portable GPS system that gives you precise distance to the flag after you preload data off your computer about the course you're on. It'll even tell you how far you've been hitting each club, so it takes out all that tedious guesswork. Just throw in a couple AA batteries, and the iGolf GPS Caddie is hummin'. All for $229.99.

Awesome. Uh, better check with my wife first.

How about $199 today only.

Do you take American Express?

Now I'm over at a faux putting green, where Carlos Barbosa is batting around a Titleist with something that, in all honesty, looks like a stick with some part taken off a lawnmower. The stainless-steel bell-shaped putter head has a small face with a hollowed-out bottom. The deal is, after you sink a putt, just stick the putter in the hole -- it actually fits in it -- and pull the ball out.

He tells me about how he's the creator, patent-holder and manufacturer of what he calls A Tipping Point putter. He has a machine shop in Baldwin Park where he, his son and his crew cranks these out himself, not willing to send them out to be made less expensive overseas. He has pride in what he's developed, and a story about how he took up the game.

``I was a former minor-league baseball pitcher in the Boston Red Sox organization,'' Carlos says. ``We were playing for a team in the City of Commerce. My teammates played golf all the time, but I thought it was silly. I finally broke down and bought some clubs at a swap meet. When I went out to play with them, the started laughing. They pointed out that I had bought a set of ladies clubs.

``And now here I am, making my own clubs, trying to make this business work.''

Carlos had me at ``beautifully.'' I broke out the plastic again and had myself a new $80 flatstick -- $50 off retail, about as unique anything you'd find this side of Scotty Cameron.

Back up a little bit more. Before this journey began, I'd stopped by the Roger Dunn shop area to pick up my Noodle balls and a couple of other things. I thought I'd thrown them all into my big red shopping bag that was given out at the entrance door.

Now, I'm about 10 minutes on the freeway heading home, and go rifling through the bag.

The box of balls has vanished.

All this stuff I just bought, I could probably justify to my wife. But the grief I'd get trying to explain how I paid $20 for a bunch of balls and then lost them -- this time, all at once, instead of a hole at a time, as usual followed by screaming ``Fore!'' -- would have been as relentless as Tiger Woods snapping at an amateur photographer on his backswing.

I shot back into the convention center and went bouncing booth to booth.

I remember getting an autograph from Nikki Di Santo, that easy-on- the-eyes contestant from College of the Canyons who made a splash on the Golf Channel's ``Big Break V'' whose job now is to show up at these golf conventions and distract everyone.

I started snooping around at her table. She gave me a strange look.

Back to the guy who showed me these stickers he developed to help you find the sweet spot on your club face. Just a sour look now. Back to the guy who had Dole banana boxes full of ``pre-owed'' balls he'd fished out of lakes and was trying to resell them.

If he found `em, he'd probably open them up and dump `em in his collection. That's his job.

I figured my only option was to go back to Roger Dunn and buy another box.

Returning to the same register, I stupidly told the clerk what had happened, trying to ease the guilt, confessing something that didn't need to be know.

The clerk stopped scanning, took a few steps back, rummaged around and pulled up a bag that had been back on a chair.

Yup. It was the balls I'd bought a few hours earlier. I left them on the counter.

Which only goes to prove that, of all the gadgets I could have come across, that ballfinder at Roger Dunn may have turned out to be the stroke of genius.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, 5 boxes

Photo:

(1) JEFF SUPPAN

(2) MATT LEINART

(3) DONNA SHALALA

Box:

(1) sunday punch

(2) HOT ... LUKEWARM ... COLD FISH

(3) FANTASY FOOTBALL

- Matt Kredell

(4) QUESTION OF THE WEEK

(5) The Pop Quiz