On the Record

By Ellie McGrath

There was a sense of dej`a vu at the Oakland Hills Country Club outside Detroit. Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper, tied after four rounds, needed an 18-hole playoff to determine the victor. No, it was not a rerun of the 1966 U.S. Open in San Francisco when Palmer blew a seven-stroke lead, then lost in a playoff to Casper. This was golf's newest big championship, the U.S. Senior Open, for competitors over 50. Palmer, 51, produced one of his famous charges in the playoff, coming from behind to beat Casper and Bob Stone for the $26,000 first prize. One other senior, notably Sam Snead, 69, objected to a ban on golf carts, but not Palmer, who has lost 20 lbs. over the past two years by running on the golf course next to his Latrobe, Pa., home. Said a buoyant Palmer: "I haven't played golf like this in five years."

The big fish in that little pond is Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer, 59. Seems hizzoner promised back in January that the city's new aquarium would be finished by July 4 or he "would jump in the tank." The Fourth came and went--and no completed aquarium. "I'm a man of my word," said Schaefer, and so, toting a rubber duckie and sporting a shoulder-to-knee Victorian bathing suit and a straw boater, the mayor walked the plank and plunked into the seal pool before 300 spectators. Will the aquarium open by Aug. 8, as now promised? Replied Schaefer: "You're going to see a mayor with tape over his mouth." But his lips were not completely, er, sealed. Added the mayor: "Tell the aquarium board chairman that if it doesn't open, he and I go back into the pool and stay there until it does."

Gently rolling, woodsy Dunn, Wis. (pop. 4,965), could never pass for Shangrila. But the karma was fabulous there last week, thanks to a visit by the Dalai Lama, 46, the exiled leader of Tibet's Buddhists. Some 1,500 pilgrims arrived in a caravan of black-and-yellow school buses at the town's 13-acre Deer Park Buddhist Center. The occasion: the spectacular Kalachakra, the wheel-of-time ceremony that all but guarantees participants nirvana. Never before performed in the West, the Kalachakra has been given only six other times by the present Dalai Lama. At the end of three days of praying, the Dalai Lama delivered a sermon on the never-ending-ness of time. Those who keep their vows are promised the attainment of Buddhahood--after seven rebirths.

Some people find it a supreme pleasure to ride in a limousine, but Diana Ross, 37, prefers self-propulsion. In midtown Manhattan, where she is recording a new album, Ross likes to ease on down the road on custom-made roller skates, while her chauffeur-driven black Mercedes trails her. Wired for music, Ross glides along to her album, The Boss, of a couple of years ago. She notes: "It's great dance music." But what about New York's perilous potholes? She admits that sometimes she does more rockin' than rollin', but the lady seldom sings the black and blues. "Wizzing" around on wheels still has one big advantage: admiring fans can't get at her. Says Diana: "I move too fast."

Barry Goldwater, 73, Arizona Senator, at a Washington sports exhibit: "I've played everything--baseball, football, basketball. I still swim a mile a day. That's why I can't walk."

Sarah Caldwell, 57, after harmoniously directing China's Central Opera Company: "In this world, it is rare to find people who do what you ask instantly without arguing or having to prove something." --By Ellie McGrath

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