Clinton Hits The Links

By Jill Barton
Associated Press

HOBE SOUND -- A relaxed Bill Clinton hit a soggy golf course Wednesday for a charity event for tsunami victims, joking about his game and saying he was not worried about his impending surgery.

Clinton went golfing with former President Bush a day before he was to check himself into the hospital for a low-risk operation to remove a buildup of fluid and scar tissue pressing on his left lung -- a rare complication from his heart-bypass surgery six months ago.

"I've had an unusual life. If something happens -- if I get struck by lightning on the golf course today -- I'd wind up ahead of where 99.99 percent of the people that ever lived," he said. "I'm just grateful for every day when the sun comes up. But it is not a dangerous procedure, unless something totally unpredictable happens."

Clinton said he knew he needed the operation before he and Bush embarked on a tour of tsunami-ravaged countries last month and scheduled it around the trip and the golf event, which was expected to raise about $2 million for tsunami victims.

The better golfer of the two, Clinton gave Bush a handicap of a few strokes but said he questioned whether that was fair against the athletic Bush, who went skydiving for his 80th birthday.

"He should be giving me strokes. He's the one jumping out of airplanes," the 58-year-old Clinton said of the man he unseated after one term in 1992.

Bush also joked about his golf game and said the tournament would have a "no laughing rule ... which is in effect every time I swing."

About 60 golfers paid $30,000 each to play in the tournament at the Medalist Golf Club, about 100 miles north of Miami. The event was organized by golfer Greg Norman, a longtime friend of Clinton.

Clinton joked about a visit he made to Norman's Jupiter Island home as president in 1997. He had planned two days of golf but stumbled on some steps and ended up in the hospital with a knee injury instead.

"At least I get to play before I go to the hospital this time," Clinton said, sitting indoors next to a fireplace on an unusually chilly and rainy Florida day.

Torrential rain and strong winds did not dissuade the former presidents, who suited up in rain gear and took a few practice swings on the driving range early in the afternoon before starting play. Clinton said he would be happy to play through a soggy 18 holes.

"They were on the golf course for over two hours in miserable conditions," Gerard Conway, the golf club's general manager, said later. He did not know whether the two former presidents completed their rounds.

For Clinton's operation, known as a decortication, doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia University Medical Center will remove scar tissue either through a small incision or with a video-assisted thorascope inserted between his ribs.

Clinton has been active since his Sept. 6 heart surgery, presiding over the opening of his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., before joining Bush for the public relations campaign to help raise money for tsunami victims.

He underwent quadruple bypass surgery after suffering chest pains and shortness of breath. He blamed his blockage on a family history of heart disease and his penchant for junk food.