Bob Hope

Domestic airfares across the nation increased nearly 5% in the first three months of 2010 from the same period in 2009, and yet the trade group that represents the nation's airlines calls the numbers good news for passengers. The latest airline statistics were released last week by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Air Transport Assn. points out that, when adjusted for inflation, the average $328 round-trip fare is 25% lower than in the first quarter of 1999, which was the highest first quarter since the Transportation Department began to keep track of airfares in 1995.

They were three kings of comedy, long before that honorary title came into use. Bob Hope, Joe E. Brown and Red Skelton were all multimedia comedians whose best work isn't that well known anymore. The release this week of vintage DVDs highlighting the films of these comic actors could introduce them to a new generation of fans. Bob Hope Hope made feature films from 1938 through 1972, but unfortunately, his last movies were wheezy, bloated, unfunny vehicles. In his earlier work, however, Hope was a master of comedic timing, a brilliant film comedian who created a wonderful neurotic character — outwardly glib, inwardly cowardly (similar to Woody Allen's on-screen persona)

Southwest Airlines, which accounts for two-thirds of passenger traffic at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport, will phase out 12% of its weekly flights by September, airport officials said. The carrier's decision to trim 82 flights from its weekly schedule is expected to further decrease already-declining passenger numbers at the commuter hub. The drop from 712 to 630 weekly flights will mean a 6% reduction in total flights leaving the airport. The Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority presented the proposal last week to airport commissioners.

Federal safety regulators are investigating the near-collision of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 and a small private plane that was practicing landings Monday at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday that the incident occurred about 11 a.m. as Southwest Flight 649 from Oakland, carrying 119 passengers and five crew members, was landing on Runway 8. NTSB officials said a single-engine Cessna 172 was practicing "touch and go" techniques on nearby Runway 15 when it passed over the 737, which was on the ground by that time and headed to the terminal.

It was a tap-in, a tiny little putt, one that Bill Haas had made thousands of times. It's easy, routine, less than a foot, able to be kicked into the hole, blown into the hole. Nothing simpler. Except this little tap-in, on the 18th hole of the Palmer Course at PGA West, on the 90th hole of the Bob Hope Classic, came with a little more attached. A winner's check of $900,000. An automatic berth into the Masters in April. A chance to be a winner, something that hadn't happened for Haas in his first 141 PGA Tour starts.

Ten players are within four shots of the lead going into the fifth and final round of the Bob Hope Classic golf tournament today. Nine of them can thank Bubba Watson for their good fortune. Watson, a 31-year-old non-winner on the PGA Tour, clutched a two-shot lead as he played his final hole Sunday. When he was finished, Watson was tied for the 72-hole lead. Watson stared into nowhere as he described what happened on that last hole, played on the Nicklaus PGA West course, a par four.

They could have held a swim meet Thursday at the Palmer Private Course at PGA West. But it was the Bob Hope Classic golf tournament that was scheduled. And then unscheduled. For the first time since 1980 an entire round of the tournament was rained out. With several holes under water at each of the four courses where play was scheduled Thursday, Slugger White, PGA Tour vice president of rules and competition, said, "It's a mess. I've been coming out here for a long time and I have never seen anything like this."

Thank goodness Jack Nicklaus turned 70 on Thursday. Because if you are the Golf Channel and you're televising the Bob Hope Classic for three hours on that afternoon and there is no golf and only rain, you've got time to fill. Billy Andrade, who along with Judy Rankin is a new member of the Golf Channel team, said he was enjoying the free-flowing, on-the-fly experience Thursday. For example, he got to tell of his first meeting with Nicklaus. It was when Andrade was playing college golf at Wake Forest when Nicklaus' son, Jackie, was playing at North Carolina.