A sign hanging from a post at the first tee alerted golfers last week that groundskeepers had just sprayed fertilizer at the Fircrest Golf Club's 18-hole course.

Uh-oh. Our foursome had stocked up on cigars to enjoy during the round. During past outings, I would gently set my lit stogie on the ground while I'd swing. That usually meant setting down my cigar about 105 times in four hours.

Unsanitary? Sure. Add a fresh application of fertilizer and the grass suddenly doesn’t seem like the best cigar holder.

Not to worry. This golf outing wasn’t about golf as much as it was a research project, a hands-on investigation into the performance of the Cigar Compadre, a new clip-to-anything cigar holder that hit the market this summer.

Its inventors and investors? Two Tacoma businessmen - Paul Miller, real estate developer and former Tacoma city councilman, and Karl Anderson, chairman of the boards at Concrete Technology Corp. and the LeMay car museum.

They also were my golfing partners on this day.

How did they come up with the Cigar Compadre?

"Necessity is the mother of invention," said Anderson, quoting ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

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