CHICAGO -- Whatever his professional basketball future may hold, Michael Jordan has a golf date at the Ameritech Senior Open Pro-Am event on Thursday, July 16.Jordan has committed to play in a pro-am event being held that day as part of the Ameritech Senior Open. He will tee it up in a foursome with Ameritech Chairman and CEO Richard C. Notebaert.
This will be Jordan's third appearance in an Ameritech Senior Open Pro-Am. In 1996, he played with Notebaert and 1995 ASO champion Hale Irwin.
In 1993, Jordan played in a group that included Arnold Palmer and former Ameritech Chairman William L. Weiss.
About 17,500 people watched that day -- an Ameritech Senior Open Pro-Am record.
Fans wishing to watch Jordan take on Kemper Lakes on July 16 can obtain tickets at special reduced prices ($8) until June 1 by visiting an Ameritech cellular store or by calling 1-800-SENIOR-1. They also will be able to purchase tickets at the course that day, though at higher, post-June 1 prices.
Advance sale ticket prices, good through June 1, are as follows:
[] A season pass, good for all events during the week, is $45.
[] Daily practice and pro-am tickets for Monday-Thursday are $8.
[] Daily ticket prices for Friday-Sunday rounds are $17.
[] Daily Pavilion Club tickets, which include a buffet lunch, are $30.
Parking remains $3 per day.
Tickets are available at Ameritech cellular stores or by calling 1-800-SENIOR-1.
The Ameritech Senior Open is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Over the past decade, it has become one of the premier events on the Senior PGA Tour. This also marks the third year the ASO will take place at Kemper Lakes, a 6,951-yard, par-72 course with enough water and tee-to-green challenges to run any golfer's hair gray. Focus on the birdie Focus has become the biggest cliche in sports, so overused is the word by coaches and players both in postgame analysis and casual conversation.
But Dr. Lawrence D. Lampert gives new meaning to 'focus' as the word applies to golf in his book The Pro's Edge: Vision Training for Golf (Saturn Press, Inc., $14.95, 1-561-477-6602).
'What golfers usually find when they start sports vision training is that, prior to training, they tend to misjudge short or long or to the right or left,' said Lampert in the opening chapter.
'After you read this book, you will learn to make accurate judgments and assign a target for every shot. On the green, your target will most likely not be the hole itself.
You will also learn how to accurately judge distance for all shots.
'You will master clubface alignment so that you have the proper alignment over the ball.
I view golf, to a large extent, as a target sport, except that you have two targets.
One is the ball itself being struck by the club. The other target is where you want the ball to end up.'
Lampert later asks: What visual skills do golfers need?
He lists the following: good eye-aiming ability; depth perception; eye dominance; eye-hand coordination; and visualization skills (the ability to use your mind's eye to plan your shots).
