What do Laura Davies and I have in common? Let's get all those cheap cracks about endomorphism out of the way right now. Aside from that or, more correctly, in addition to that, you're right: Both of us enjoy the occasional cocktail, driving just slightly over the speed limit and wagering a few bob now and again. (For the uninitiated, and reformed Globe readers, the previous paragraph is a study in understatement.)

But the correct answer to today's question is that both Davies and I won the first tournaments we played after having Lasik eye surgery to correct nearsightedness. You will recall that Davies won the $750,000 (US) Los Angeles Women's Golf Championship a month ago, having undergone the life-changing laser procedure just one day prior to the tournament.

My parallel claim to fame is that PGA Tour player John Huston and I just won the Lake Jovita Golf and Country Club Grand Opening Pro-Am and Clambake near Zephyrville, just outside Dade City. Won it going away by a Tiger-like seven shots over the likes of teams led by Tom Lehman (who co-designed the out-standing new course with architect Kurt Sandness), Billy Glasson, Michael Bradley, Ted Tyba, Brian Gay and Frank Lickliter.

Dr. Mark Whitten, who works out of the TLC Laser Eye Centres facility in Rockville, Md., has done about 20,000 Lasik procedures, including Tiger Woods, Tom Kite, Mike Weir and Fred Funk (who set a 36-hole PGA Tour scoring record four days after his operation in 1998).

Other PGA Tour pros who have seen the light include Steve Elkington, Rich Beem, Tom Byrum, Kenny Ferry, and Mark Brooks. On the LPGA, Pearl Sinn, Patty Hurst, Becky Jverson and Maggie Will are seeing more clearly. Even caddies such as Brampton, Ont.'s Steve Duplantis (Beem), Fanny Sunesson (Sergio Garcia) and Mark Jimenez (PaulAzinger) are seeing the benefits. It was just a matter of time until golf columnists with Mr. Magoo-like vision got the message and passed it on.

"I think golfers are particularly concerned about their vision and the ability to see under many different environmental circumstances: surmises Whitten. "With Lasik, they are free to concentrate on other aspects of their game. They also notice that their vision is even better than it was with contact lenses and glasses."

Woods, whose laser-enhanced death stare psyched Davis Love III into a distant second place on Sunday at Bay Hill, had his corneas reshaped last Oct. 1. We all know what happened after that. As Golf World magazine said in reporting the news, "You mean he won five tournaments and $4.26million with blurry vision?" "Tiger's vision was so bad without contact lenses that it was not measurable in the usual way" says Whitten. "We call it counting fingers' vision. That is, he could only count my fingers without contacts or glasses. He could not see the end of the room, the (eye)chart or almost anything without glasses. I like to say that people with this kind of vision cannot get out of a burning building without their glasses."

'THE HOLE IS BIGGER.

THE BALL IS BIGGER

THE CLUBS ARE BIGGER

Tiger Woods

After the surgery, it was Tiger setting the world on fire. "The hole is bigger. The ball is bigger. The clubs are bigger," Tiger marveled after winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in January. It wasn't just his imagination, says Whitten. "When someone is severely nearsighted like Tiger was, it is true that everything looks smaller, so that when I made him 'normal, everything suddenly 1 ooked huge."

Now Tiger is the official spokesman for TLC, just one of many facilities which have performed this surgery on more than a million people since the late 1980s. TLC's client list (all those players listed above) is impressive and their network far-flung, encompassing more than 50 centres in 25 states and Canada.

Seeing that they have performed more than 159,000 laser vision correction procedures, I figured it was time to go under the knife. Well, to be precise, under the cool beam of ultraviolet light from the excimer laser. So three months ago, I swallowed my trepidation and took my 20/400 eyes (the same as Weir) to Dr. Nick Nianiaris at the TLC Laser Eye Centre in North York, Ont.

After an intensive eye exam where the cornea was mapped by a computer, I was ready for surgery. A few drops in each eye, then sliding under the laser, focussing on a red dot, a tiny flap is cut into the cornea, and the laser reshapes the inner cornea ... about 12 minutes later, glasses and contact lenses were a thing of the past.

(Now the answer you really want, you big wimps. "Did it hurt?" Nope, no pain whatsoever. Not even the sensation of anyone touching my eyes. It was less traumatic than inserting contact lenses for the first time.)The next day I was driving. Three days later I was sitting at my computer, banging out my column.

Is it all it's cracked up to be? Definitely. After wearing glasses for 35 years, I'm enjoying a whole new lifestyle. I can see the clock when I wake up, I toughhouse with my kids without fear that a miscue would have me walking around with duct tape holding my glasses' together, see who I am sleeping with (Yikes! Just kidding, honey) and - most importantly- play golf. That is, I can play golf without the hassles of rain or fog on my glasses, my contact lenses drying out or getting bunker sand under them, popping out or allergies driving me to distraction. (Although, now that I think of it, I no longer have those excuses available to me after abad shot.) I can see the line of my putts much more clearly, and L can follow my shots. I can't follow them perfectly, mind you. My corrected vision approaches 20/30, a smidge off Weir's 20/20 or Tiger's 20/15. In fact, I may go back to get it tweaked a bit if Dr. Nianiaris figures it will make a difference.

At 20/30 or so, 1 sometimes lose sight of the ball before it comes to its final resting place. But, with my game, that's not necessarily a bad thing.