Let?s Get Ready to Rumble

Darrell Walker and Dr. Carl Johnson, the two well-known combatants in the Aug. 31 “Brawl at Chenal,” shouldn’t feel too bad.

There have been at least two other fights at Chenal Country Club in west Little Rock during the last five months. One was apparently a Sunday afternoon melee on the 18th green that included in various degrees of participation Kent Norris of Insurance Center Inc., Scotty Caroom of Excel Lighting & Maintenence Corp. and Mark Madison of Madison Financial Services all in Little Rock.

The members of the group who returned our calls acknowledged that there was an “incident” but declined to comment further. That battle royal included some of the parties “rasslin'” around on the green in front of a surprised gallery of witnesses near the clubhouse.

Another recent scuffle apparently included Clif Kelley of State Farm Insurance in Little Rock and three other golfers. Kelley didn’t return several phone calls in time for comment.

Walker — the former University of Arkansas basketball All-American, NBA player and coach — and Johnson, secretary to the UA System’s board of trustees and a physician at Little Rock’s Fairpark Medical Center, apparently got into a disagreement over whether or not Johnson’s group could “play through” Walker’s.

The ensuing fracas allegedly resulted in Walker wacking Johnson with a golf club, which Walker’s lawyer said caused a fracture that required surgery. A blow-by-blow account of the incident is available by searching for “brawl” at www.arkansasbusiness.com.

When we called Bill Toney, the general manager at “Che-brawl,” for a comment, he was quiet for a moment then began saying, “Hello? Hello?” as if he could not hear. He didn’t return any additional calls.