In the Golf Course of Human Events . . .

One of the wonders of golf is its metaphorical splendor. In golf, as in life, there are all kinds of obstacles and rough and areas considered out of bounds--or OB, as it is known. Sometimes a risk results in reward, sometimes in penalty. And circumstances often require a dash of creativity.

All of which brings us back to the colorful, contentious case of Danny Cohen, an 86-year-old member of the Braemar Country Club who allegedly understands the etiquette of golf better than the etiquette of life.

A few weeks have passed since the matter of Florence Troha vs. Danny Cohen was first reported here. Troha, 54, is seeking to financially penalize Cohen for OB behavior that she alleges occurred in the vicinity of the snack shop she operates beyond the ninth hole of the west course at the Tarzana club.

Cohen, a slightly built man who has had a colostomy bag for 16 years, is accused of making lewd suggestions to Troha and, more seriously, of forcing a kiss on her, grabbing her breasts and forcing her hand to his crotch. Cohen, meanwhile, insists it’s a pack of lies and that Troha is just after his money.

Now, the accusations against Cohen exceed anything Anita Hill said about Clarence Thomas or Paula Jones about Bill Clinton. The allegations aren’t in the Marv Albert league, but they are far beyond the realm of two people having different perspectives of the same event. No, the only possibility here is that either Troha or Cohen is lying.

Now, in golf, the word lie typically refers to the position of the ball. There are good lies that rest cleanly on the fairway and bad lies in deep grass among trees.

So please understand that no moral opinion is implied here in suggesting that Danny Cohen, metaphorically speaking, has a rotten lie. You might say he was in the rough behind Troha’s snack shop with no clear shot to the flag.

So Cohen’s attorney, Jonathan G. Gabriel of Sherman Oaks, assessed the situation and came up with a strategy that calls to mind a scene from the movie “Tin Cup.”

Golf pro Roy McAvoy, played by Kevin Costner, finds his ball in the rough behind some trees--”in jail,” we duffers say. A golf commentator is standing nearby, whispering that there’s no way McAvoy can put his ball on green. But our hero knows better.

He turns and chips the ball against a portable outhouse. The carom winds up a few feet from the hole.

Gabriel tried something similar. The best way around Troha’s snack shop, he figured, was to take a whack at the Braemar Country Club itself. He filed a cross-complaint against the club, asserting that its failure to promulgate and enforce rules regarding sexual harassment had left Cohen vulnerable to a frivolous lawsuit. Legal standards that now apply to the workplace, Gabriel contends, should also apply to a business such as Braemar--a country club that is not owned by its members, but by the Club Corp. of America, a company with deep pockets.

According to the suit, Cohen “believes that, as a matter of law, a male golfer should not be liable for language that would normally be considered sexually offensive, and that if indeed such language is to be actionable on a golf course, then golf clubs such as the Club owe a duty to their older male members to educate and warn them about the dangers of engaging in such verbal conduct while playing golf. For example, club members . . . should be warned that they cannot call female employees of the Club ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart,’ and that they cannot tell a dirty joke to their golf buddies while playing a round of golf or while sitting at the bar, for fear that a female employee of the Club will overhear them and sue for verbally abusive conduct.”

That was the shot Cohen and Gabriel played.

But their shot did not work out like Roy McAvoy’s. They did not strike sufficient fear into the heart of Club Corp. of America that it might somehow be held liable in the matter of Troha vs. Cohen. The ball, in essence, ricocheted right back to their feet--in the rough behind the snack shop.

The way Gabriel tells it, Cohen dropped the counter-complaint after club officials threatened him with expulsion. Cohen has played at the club four times a week for many years. The fear of losing something so dear as his tee times, Gabriel says, influenced Cohen more than any doubt about the rightness of his cause.

Mark Murphy, Braemar’s general manager, suggested that Cohen came to understand that his fellow club members--not Braemar’s corporate management--could conduct their own inquiry into Troha’s allegations and decide whether he had engaged in “conduct unbecoming of a member.” If so, he could be reprimanded, suspended or expelled.

Murphy, who had previously declined comment on the case, suggested that all manner of wrongdoing not specified in Braemar’s bylaws and policies are covered as “conduct unbecoming of a member.” The club’s rules, for example, don’t expressly forbid sexual harassment and sexual assault just as they don’t forbid murder.

So now Troha vs. Cohen is once again a garden-variety sexual harassment case, save for the fact of Cohen’s advanced years. Whether he’s the oldest man in America to be formally accused of such transgressions I don’t know. Lawyers on both sides are thrashing around with their pretrial motions and depositions. In the latest twist, Gabriel says he is trying to prevent Troha’s attorney from questioning Louise Cohen, Danny’s wife of 35 years.

Which reminds me of another nice thing about golf: It never gets as nasty as life.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at [email protected] Please include a phone number.