There have been quite a few players over the years who have heard, but not seen, their ball disappearing for a hole-in-one, but when Sheila Drummond recorded her first ace earlier in the week, it gave a new meaning to hearing and not seeing.

Because 53-year-old Sheila, who found the target with a driver from 144 yards while playing with her husband at the Mahoning Valley County Club in Pennsylvania earlier in the week, is now the first totally blind woman to have holed in one.

Drummond, who is a member of the board of directors of the United States Blind Golfers Association and who lost her sight in 1982 due to diabetes, insists that she is the first to accomplish the feat. "We've looked everywhere and we're pretty sure I'm the first woman."

WOODY MAKES SURE HE LIVES UP TO HIS NAME

It was said of journeyman Woody Austin following his second-place at the USPGA Championship that he had captivated the media.

Admittedly, his comments about a notoriously fragile mindset were mildly interesting . . . "Mentally, I'm as far down as it gets. That's where I'm trying to close the gap, and obviously at the PGA I closed it" . . . but as for captivating anyone, we're not so sure.

After all, Austin's bizarre reflections on Tiger Woods's brilliant second-round 63 were little more than the ramblings of someone totally unaccustomed to the limelight. "I outplayed him, but he beat me by seven shots, " quoth Woody. "It just happened that he scored better."

Woody by name, Woody by nature.

US PLAN TO TURN UP HEAT FOR RYDER CUP

In the aftermath of the soaring temperatures during the PGA Championship at Southern Hills where only three heat-affected Europeans . . . Simon Dyson, Justin Rose and Anders Hansen . . .managed to finish in the top-20, the American scribe, Bob Verdi, had some tactical advice to reverse the recent Ryder Cup trend.

"We should arrange a Ryder Cup for Southern Hills in August, and soon, " wrote Verdi in Golf World. "If you can't beat them, boil them."

By the way, the heat index in the Tulsa area was so high Jyoti Randhawa, born and raised in India, was one of the players who withdrew mopping his brow in the first round.