NOTEBOOK

By JON GOLDSTEIN, JANICE M. HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI, LINA LOFARO, EMILY MITCHELL AND ALAIN L. SANDERS

WINNERS & LOSERS

CLINTON II, THE SEQUEL, PLAYS THE CAPITOL

[WINNERS]

HILLARY CLINTON Makes Liddy Dole-like tour of Arkansas and then nixes all White House fund raisers

DICK GEPHARDT Shuts down Clinton on both CPI and a budget compromise. 2000, here we come

THE PRESIDENT Knee injury conveniently gives the Big Guy something else to talk about

[& LOSERS]

AL GORE China trip still on for next week. No way to avoid more pics with Asian businessmen

ERSKINE BOWLES Chief of staff needs emergency media coaching; not yet ready for Sunday morning

TRENT LOTT Mr. Neat gets rolled by Dems, who manage to broaden Senate probe of campaign finance

THE PUTT STOPS HERE

Bill Clinton's unhappy fall last week at the home of golf pro Greg Norman will earn the President his own place in the history of First Duffers. When it comes to presidential golf, it has often been the spectators (fore!) who were wounded, not the Chief Hackers. (See Clinton's 1995 outing with George Bush and Gerald Ford, when three people were hit by errant shots from the two ex-Presidents.) But Clinton is hardly the first President to come to grief over golf.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT His Rotundity wasn't fit enough for tennis, so he became the first President to hit the links seriously. Unfortunately, Taft was besieged by critics who lambasted him for playing a rich man's sport (and he failed to drop any pounds to boot).

HARRY TRUMAN The un-golfer. Even though he didn't play the game, golf was a headache for Harry. To an accuser, he once asserted, "I never played golf in my life...so I couldn't possibly have fired a ball on the Independence [Missouri] golf course and hit anybody on the head."

RICHARD NIXON Nixon struggled to get his handicap down to 14, but he was never a fanatic about the rules. Sam Snead recalled once playing with the President when Nixon's ball flew into a thicket. Moments later, Snead saw the ball arc onto the fairway. "I knew he threw it out," wrote Snead, but "what could I say?"

GERALD FORD Ford may have had more advisers for his golf game than he did for the Middle East: Jack Nicklaus guided his swing, Hale Irwin helped him with irons, and Dave Stockton nursed his putting. But his golfing only seemed to reinforce his image as a big (clumsy) man carrying a little stick.

Sources: White House Sportsmen; Slammin' Sam; Golf magazine.

HEALTH REPORT

THE GOOD NEWS

--Donating blood not only rescues others; it may also save you. Finnish researchers report that middle-aged men who periodically give blood reduce their risk of a HEART ATTACK by 85%. Reason: excessive levels of iron in the body seem to cause damage to arterial cells. When blood is lost, iron stores drop.

--FIBROIDS in retreat? A preliminary trial finds that the benign tumors shrink markedly when doctors inject uterine arteries with a solution containing tiny plastic particles. The injections cut off the blood supply to the fibroids--apparently without harming the uterus.

--Hold the double cheeseburger. America's EATING HABITS are improving. The average adult now consumes 4 1/2 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, up 12% from 1991 and just a half serving shy of the recommended amount.

THE BAD NEWS

--Women who have had TUBAL STERILIZATION, now hear this. If you wind up conceiving (which is rare), you face a 30% risk of an ectopic pregnancy--in which the egg implants outside the womb. One-sided pelvic pain and unusual vaginal bleeding are symptoms. Don't ignore them.

--Stub it out, already! SMOKERS who continue to puff away after having balloon angioplasty double their odds of a heart attack or early death.

--Less pain for Mom, more problems for baby. Newborns of mothers who had EPIDURALS for labor pains are more likely to undergo blood tests and be given prophylactic antibiotics. Why? Epidurals can raise a mother's temperature. Since fever in Mom can be a sign of infection in the baby, doctors must do a workup.

Sources--GOOD NEWS: British Medical Journal; Society of Cardiovascular & Interventional Radiology meeting; National Cancer Institute BAD NEWS: New England Journal of Medicine (1,2); Pediatrics

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

MAURICE STANS, 89; PASADENA, CALIFORNIA; Republican fund raiser

When it comes to raising money for presidential elections, you could say Maurice Stans wrote the book. As finance chairman of Richard Nixon's successful re-election in 1972, he reeled in an unprecedented $61 million. An accountant by training, Stans had been budget director under Dwight Eisenhower and later began fund raising for Nixon, ultimately becoming Nixon's first Secretary of Commerce. To this day Stans steadfastly maintains he was not involved in any Watergate wrongdoing. In 1975 he did plead guilty to five misdemeanor violations of campaign laws, paying a $5,000 fine. (A year earlier he was acquitted of conspiring to stifle an SEC probe of financier Robert Vesco.) Watergate did not dim his loyalty or his powers: he raised $30 million for the Nixon library. Stans deems some of the current D.N.C. contributions "improper, illegal and purposely dishonest." Though he is "very much in favor" of the Senate's upcoming investigation, the now retired business consultant and philanthropist is decidedly pessimistic about reform.