The News Tribune

Give the county golf czars credit for honesty: At least they never pretended their Scottish links-style course would be affordable for golfers who don’t have a wad of Royal Bank of Scotland 50-pound notes stuffed under their kilts.

“Get thee to Spanaway Lake” was the message that came through, loud and clear, to rank-and-file duffers.

But do ya think County Exec John Ladenburg ever meant to price out his own clan?

According to the June/July issue of The Bar News, the publication of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association, the lawyers won’t be swinging their sticks at Ladenburg Links for this summer’s tournament, though they’d like to.

“To make it feasible, we would need a minimum of 100 golfers at $200 a head just to cover the bare minimum,” wrote Mike Misner, chairman of the Golf Committee, which decided that “we could not obligate the Bar to that big of a potential financial hit.”

Case closed.

The duffer with the wicked slice who would’ve been playing behind a hundred attorneys can count himself lucky.

Instead, the lawyer herd will head south to Fort Lewis Golf Course, where they’ll get a cart, a meal and 18 holes for about half the cost of a round at Chambers Bay.

Unless the Nisqually Tribe gets its way, that is.

Then the “plink, plink” you hear will be the sound of hundreds of billable hours being dropped into the nickel slots.

Democrat wunderkind Barack Obama is coming to the upper left-hand corner today to flaunt his presidential charms at Qwest Field.

His campaign has chosen to call it his “Seattle kickoff.” Which tells you something about how the rest of the state rates.

Can we have the Audacity to Hope the junior senator from Illinois will grace us with a “Tacoma kickoff”?

Looks like the bridge builders have settled on July 15 as the day for all to celebrate and start paying as much as $3 for a trip that used to be free.

Well, whoop-de-stinkin’-do.

No doubt all kinds of dignitaries will be there, with bells on. (Or in the case of Sen. Pam Roach, paper booties to keep icky bridge dust off her carpet.)

Alas, the new span still doesn’t have a nickname. And in the proud tradition of “Gallopin’ Gertie” and “Sturdy Gertie,” it needs one. Our short list includes:

 • Gratuitous Gertie.

 • Gaudy Gertie (if they hang those lights back up).

 • Good to Gertie!

 • Halfway to Purdy Gertie.

 • Mucho d’Narrows.

 • Gallopin’ Gregoire.

Spotted near McChord Air Force Base: Three gas stations, each with a price-per-gallon sign out front, and Rollies Tavern, with a sign of its own:

“Beer, $354.9 a gallon.”

We doubt it’ll keep your car running, but siphoning just got a heckuva lot more fun.

Are the City Of Destiny’s ambitions shrinking?

First the grand plan for Urban Waters goes from a world-class environmental research facility to a waterfront parking lot for sewage trailers.

Now we see that the LeMay auto museum might scale back to be a parking annex for the Tacoma Dome.

Next thing you know, the sleek museum roof won’t resemble the hood scoop of a classic muscle car, but the broken glovebox cover of a scrapyard Yugo.

Hey, at least “Urban Waters” could be a great name for a condo development.

T-town, look no further than University Place’s Town Center – oops, sorry, 122 Degrees West – to see how it’s done. Whenever that city has a setback, it enlarges the project by another 100,000 square feet or two.

Ever since they missed out on the University, those UPlace folks just won’t let reality get in the way of a nice dream.