Knappster: The curious case of Bob Miller's missing golf clubs

By George Knapp

Let's say you had a job working inside the Vatican. It wouldn't exactly be a smart move for you to steal the pope's pointy hat, remove the silky inner lining, then toss the rest of the headpiece into the garbage can.

Bob Miller isn't the pope, but he is one of the best-known and most popular elected officials in modern Nevada history. He served 10 years as Nevada's governor, longer than anyone else, as well as six years as lieutenant governor and eight years as the district attorney of Clark County. He's not exactly a low-profile guy, which is why the theft of his personalized golf clubs isn't something your average master criminal would attempt.

On Oct. 7, the athletic ex-gov participated in the prestigious Michelin Championship Golf Tournament here in Las Vegas. The tournament's format calls for players to shoot a round on three different courses over three days. Miller's first day was spent at the Bear's Best course. At the end of the day, Best Bear's employees told Miller and other players to leave their golf bags and that the employees would transfer the bags to the next course.

The next day, Miller arrived at the second course but his bag and clubs were nowhere to be found. Don't worry, he was assured, we'll find them. And in the meantime, he was offered a loaner set. On the third day of the tournament, Miller showed up at the third course, but again, his clubs were missing. Again, he used a loaner set.

The missing clubs were hardly inconspicuous. They were custom-built to accommodate Miller's gangly stature. And the bag itself was engraved with his name and the state seal. There aren't a lot of those floating around local clubhouses.

A few days later, Miller's empty golf bag was found in a dumpster behind a convenience store, a store that isn't too far from the Bear's Best course. When police investigated, they found that the store had videotaped the suspect as he pulled the bag out of his white pickup and the plopped it into the trash. The tape also showed that the suspect then went inside the store, bought some items and, in the process, plastered his mug all over the store's cameras. Store employees thought they recognized the guy as an employee of the Bear's Best course.

When the cops showed up at Bear's Best, they quickly surmised that the man on the tape was the No. 2 guy at the club, the executive director of Bear's Best. At first, the suspect denied all knowledge of the incident. But when confronted with the videotape, his story changed. He said he had found the empty bag and decided to get rid of it in order to spare his employer the embarrassment of being marginally responsible for the theft of the former governor's prized golf equipment.

Playing it cool, the cops then asked if it would be okay to search the golf executive's home. He hemmed and hawed, made an excuse why that wouldn't be possible, and seemed to be stalling. The cops then told him he was a suspect in the theft and said they would obtain a search warrant if necessary.

That's when his tune changed. He told the officers he would tell them everything, as long as they didn't lead him out of the office in handcuffs. Once outside, he admitted the missing golf clubs were in his bathroom at home. Sure enough, when the officers went to the home, they found the gov's clubs, along with many others that didn't seem to belong to anyone.

Miller was understandably ticked off about the theft itself, but is reportedly more disturbed about how the incident was handled by Bear's Best. The suspect's boss reportedly contacted attorneys who are club members to help spring the guy from jail after he was arrested. The suspect was fired from his job but was seen laughing and joking as he cleaned out his locker. And two weeks later, Miller still hadn't heard from anyone at Bear's Best with so much as a simple apology. That's when Miller wrote to the company's corporate office in Dallas. Then he waited for a reply.

Twenty days after the theft of his clubs, he got a letter from the head golf pro at Bear's Best. The letter-writer apologized and offered to replace the two clubs that were still missing from Miller's bag. Kicking into prosecutor gear, Miller wrote back, asking whether the company had bothered to make inquiries about the other golf clubs that had been found at the suspect's home, especially since other Bear's Best employees lived at the same address.

Miller still doesn't have an answer to his question, but he did finally received a letter of apology from corporate executives, who vow to get to the bottom of the situation in Las Vegas.

Note to other golf bag thieves: In the future, try to target bags that don't carry the Nevada seal. Stealing the beloved clubs of an ex-governor is stupid enough, but especially an ex-governor who is also an ex-prosecutor.

Election postscript

At the time this is being written, the results of the presidential election are not known. There's a reasonable chance the results won't be known for while, although few people can be happy if the election ends up being contested in the courts.

It seems pretty clear the country is deeply divided, almost down the middle, and that the bitterness isn't going to go away anytime soon. My hope is that, regardless of whether Bush or Kerry ends up the winner, the losing party will not spend the next four years trying to subvert the political process out of sheer spite. This doesn't mean that either the Republicans or Democrats must roll over and go along for the ride on whatever policies are pursued. But the country can't afford four more years of all-out bitterness and obstructionism for its own sake. The world is too dangerous a place for more divisiveness. There's got to be some middle ground.

If President Bush is re-elected, we've got to hope that he will at least make a modest effort to move to the center rather than even further to the right. Why not chart a course that is more amenable to both sides rather than toss more chunks of red meat to the religious right or the corporate bosses? He told us he's a uniter. Why not show it?

And should John Kerry prevail, he will not only have to contend with a Republican-controlled Congress, but also close to half of the population who have deep suspicions about his ability to govern. He will need the help of moderate Republicans and disaffected Democrats if he is to get anything done. He will need to throw them more than a bone.

It may seem like wishful thinking, but we can hope, can't we? Neither of these guys is likely to receive a mandate on Election Day. It can't be a winner-takes-all mindset. One of these guys needs to step up and make an honest effort to move beyond our partisan divisions.

Names and faces

The mystery of Sandy Murphy's velvet bag has been solved. The question was raised by my colleague Norm Clarke, who noted in a recent column that Murphy seemed pretty excited in court when she was handed a small, dark bag the other day. Murphy told me it's no big secret. A friend gave her a St. Jude's medal. Murphy was reluctant to say much about the progress of the Binion murder trial, except that she and her lawyers are pretty pleased with how the case is playing out thus far. ... Las Vegas attorney Bob Massi has landed another plumb assignment for the Fox News network. Massi is in California this week, serving as a legal commentator for Fox's coverage of the blockbuster Scott Peterson murder trial. ... We mentioned a few months ago that Las Vegan Joey Cusumano had landed a 10-picture deal with the Showtime Network. Principal photography on the first movie is now complete. The production company celebrated the achievement by securing the cover page of Variety to plug the film Our Fathers, which focuses on the assorted sex scandals swirling around the Catholic Church.