Kathleen Madigan discusses golf with comics, Afghanistan sand

Today, Kathleen Madigan gives us tantalizing details about golfing with her friends Lewis Black and Ron White.

"Lewis has gotten much better over the years. He's really calmed down on the golf course," she says.

Madigan confirms she has seen Black "helicopter" a club into the air (not a surprise, since his onstage demeanor is midlevel hyperventilation).

"He actually did that in Florida, into an environmentally protected alligator habitat," she says.

"He hit the ball, and it flew in this bizarre pattern, and it landed in someone's backyard in a pool that was empty, and it bounced out, and a Doberman got it.

"And he was like, 'What was that?! What was that?!"

So Black threw his club. Then he tried to trick Madigan into driving the cart to find it amid the gators.

"I said, 'Lewis, the club costs $90. Do you know how much it's going to cost to put our hands back on after they get eaten by an alligator?' "

Madigan often golfs with cigar-chomping White around his multimillion-dollar "fancy place in Montecito."

"We drove up to some place way up in Montecito, and they said, 'You can't smoke on the course today because it's a fire hazard.' And he's like, 'Well, we gotta go somewhere else.' I said, 'Ron, I imagine if it's a fire hazard here, it's all over the valley.' "

Women are more efficient golfers than men, she claims.

"I play sometimes in my mom's league of old ladies," she says. "They're just faster. They don't have the ego. They go to the proper tee. If they're having a horrible hole, they just pick it up and say, 'Double par.'

"Guys are slower, because they're all over the course, they don't hit straight, it's ego, and they're playing from the blue tees when they should not be."

Madigan has golfed in Vegas "a million times."

"It's a little expensive, but if you can get out of the fancy pants (courses) and just drive a little bit further, it's awesome."

As for her own game, she can hit an 85. And she's ready to walk down the aisle with her new "magical" hybrid 4 iron.

"I'm gonna marry it in a private ceremony in Maui," she promises.

SAND IN Afghanistan

Madigan entertained troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Afterward, her brother asked what Afghanistan was like.

"Well, Patrick," she told him, "go out in your garage, get in your walk-in freezer, and every 15 minutes, I'll come by and throw a cup of sand in your face.

"And then in the morning, I'll hand you a weird piece of meat, and tell you it's bacon, but you know it's not, but you'll eat it anyway."

As you might suspect, war isn't sexy.

"I don't think anybody ever thinks about sex" in the war, she says. Wait, she corrects herself.

"I did think about sex, because I thought: I'm so cold, maybe it's the only thing that will warm me up.

"But there's no showering, not really. The bathrooms are outside. All you're thinking is, 'I'm freezing. I need to get warm. And I need to get this sand out of my face.'

"And you really don't want to have sex when you have sand all over you."

She obviously isn't speaking on behalf of the Sand People of Tatooine.

Anyway, Afghanistan is a dump, she says. Madigan has been telling this joke: Afghanistan makes Iraq look like Vegas.

"Iraq has a civilization to begin with. They have universities and shopping centers and palaces."

"Afghanistan -- like I say in my act -- people say, 'How much money will it cost to fix it?' I say, 'How much money would it cost to fix the moon -- while moon people throw things at you?' "

It would make more sense to invade Italy, she jokes:

"If I flew over Italy, I'd say, 'Let's attack them. They have olives and wine and pasta. It looks lovely.'

"But you fly over Afghanistan, and I don't see one thing anybody wants."

That's because you can't see oil from the sky.

If she could advise President Obama on the war, she would tell him to send 5 million helicopters to withdraw everyone carrying an American passport, then use the war money to fix Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis.

"And don't even bother bringing the things home that we've brought to Afghanistan. Leave it for the next country that thinks they're smart enough to kick these people's ass -- because that's what the Russians did. They didn't even take their stuff home! We were staying in Russian barracks that they left behind. It's like they ran for their lives."

Doug Elfman's column appears Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at delfman@ reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.