I am speaking here, in my case, of my right pointer finger; the one I shake in your face and say, "Didn't I tell you Ross Perot would kick Al Gore's fanny in the NAFTA debate?" 

(I don't know one thing about NAFTA, except that if Bill Clinton is for it, I'm against it. It's called the politics of the happily uninformed.) 

Since back in the spring certain known practitioners of medicine have been wanting to cut off that finger at the first joint. 

That is because during my heart valve surgery at that time, a blood clot formed on the tip of that finger and caused it to turn completely black. 

"We need to take the tip of that finger off," said doctors at Emory Hospital. 

The theory was that portion of my finger was dead and gone. It would never recover, never return to its previous self. 

I must admit I've had my own doubts. The black portion of the tip was a hardened crust. 

"That will come off," said doctors, "and there will be bone exposed and you'll lose the use of the finger." 

Still, I refused to have the tip of the finger amputated. I recently visited Virginia, incidentally, where Lorena Bobbitt is still loose, so I kept my right hand in my pocket. 

As long as that hard, black outer crust was attached to my finger, I was able to get by fairly nicely. 

When I pointed it at somebody and said, "I told you we'd get bogged down in a no-win situation in Somalia," the fact the end of it looked like it had been run over in the train wreck scene of "The Fugitive" made it even more imposing. 

There were a few things I had to change. Because the nail has been sensitive, I've had to learn to type with one less finger. 

And to compensate, I had to shelve my '50s-vintage manual typewriter for an e lectric, whose keys offer less resistance. But I am still yet to touch a computer, which I consider to be the work of the devil. 

There were other changes I had to make, but they are of a more personal nature, and despite the fact a woman cutting off a man's skaddodoh (Mongolian term) is now front page news, I still think it best to spare you details. 

The finger's condition did not keep me from playing golf, my passion, however. That particular finger, thankfully, plays very little part in the golf grip or swing. 

But, this. I was playing the par 5 seventh hole at the beautiful Ansley Golf Club last week. I swung a 6-iron. The blackened, hard-crusted tip of my finger fell off. 

Fell off. 

What was underneath it was what appeared to be a rather nasty- looking combination of caked-blood and pinkish, ultra-sensitive tissue. 

But it didn't hurt. I continued the hole, as a matter of fact, and, for the record, I parred it. Let the tip of Nick Faldo's finger fall off after hitting a 6-iron and see if he still pars the hole. 

"What did you do with the part of the finger that fell off?" I naturally was asked when recounting the story. 

Simple. Picked it up off the fairway, put it in my pocket and used it to mark my ball when I reached the green. 

I think that finger is going to make it. It has looked better each day. And to those who insisted upon taking it from me, it points now. 

Ginsu skaddodah. That's Mongolian for either, "Get away from me with that knife," or, "I told you so."