Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 27

TFiurv, rrii vk' 27 77 Trrm a jm. -tak Ws Golf notebook By Marino Parascenzo Post-Gazette Sports Writer The current flaps on the PGA Tour actually are so much smoke and very little fire. Or, as Commissioner Deane Beman put it last week: "There are so few controversies in golf, that when we do get one, it appears to be much bigger than it is." (Mercifully, he did not say the media were blowing them out of proportion.) There are two flaps and another on the way. And it may be the Internal Revenue Service to the rescue in two of them. The biggest is the Mac O'Grady case.

O'Grady was lined $500 for allegedly insulting a volunteer worker at the New Orleans tournament last year. He refused to pay the fine, and began calling Beman a "Hitler, a Communist," and the like. Such insults to the commissioner's office escalated the case to a "proposed" fine of $5,000 to $10,000 and suspension of three to six tournaments. O'Grady said he will sue. Contrast the O'Grady case with an almost identical one last year, in which J.C.

Snead, in response to a television interviewer's question, criticized a certain tournament. Beman fined Snead $1,000. Snead refused to pay it, Beman had it lifted from his winnings, and Snead sued and won, on the grounds that Beman lacked the authority to garnishee winnings. Snead, having proved his point, then donated the $1,000 to charity. The principal difference between these is that Snead objected in a calm and reasonable way.

O'Grady has been ranting. In the other flap, the case of Spain's Severiano Ballesteros, the IRS could save Beman a lot of trouble and embarrassment. Beman barred Ballesteros from the tour this year for refusing to play in the 15 tournaments required of foreign players. Awkwardly enough, the figure 15 was one he had helped to set when Beman was trying to work up a rule that would let him play here. "Now he calls the rule silly," Beman said.

And now Beman is being silly. A new IRS ruling says foreign workers who stay in the United States for more than 120 days must 15 games, the way he banned Ballesteros. A different target Meanwhile, the American Golf Sponsors, who put up the $28 million for Tour purses, may make good on their threat to bar a golfer, but surprise it probably won't be O'Grady. When AGS President Ted Mingolla revealed that some sponsors might invoke the bar provision in their agreement with the Tour. It was generally assumed O'Grady was the first target.

But another player unidentified is the one in mind. Qualifying time The first step toward the U.S. Open, the Pittsburgh local qualifier, will be held Tuesday, May 20, at Highland and Shannopin Country Clubs. It's one of 55 local qualifiers throughout the land. Qualifiers from the local go on to a second test, the sectional qualifier.

The nearest for Pittsburgh qualifiers will be held at the Sharon Golf Club near Cleveland Monday, June. 2. From there, it's on to the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island, N.Y., June 12-15. Other U.S.

Golf Association qualifiers: U.S. Women's Public Links, May 28, at South Park Golf Course; U.S. Senior Open, June 17, at Valley Brook CC; U.S. Public Links, June 18-19, at South Park; U.S. Women's Open, June 27, at Westmoreland CC.

Elsewhere Shannopin CC's Carol Semple Thompson, former U.S. Women's Amateur and British Women's Amateur champion, won the Mexican Amateur in early March at Chapultapec CC, shooting 75-71-75-69-290 for a 13-shot victory "The Shannopin Chieftan" recently won its third straight award, a third place among club newsletters in the annual National Golf Foundation competition for 1985; editor is Jackson L. Obley, the assistant Phil Gundelfinger retired Post-Gazette golf writer The Tournament Players Championship has pledged $1 million over the next four years toward a treatment and research center for teen-age drug and alcohol abuse to be established in Jacksonville, Fla. It will be' known as the Nancy Reagan TPC Village. pay taxes here on their worldwide earnings, too.

West Germany's Bernhard Langer was caught in this Catch 22. Langer played in the required 15 tournaments last year, but said he can't do it this year. He announced last week that he would go home after 14. Beman noted that 120 days is 17 calendar weeks, and offered that a guy could play 15 tournaments in 17 weeks. A former Tour pro himself, he ought to know that anyone trying to keep up that pace is either going through the motions or is headed for instant burnout neither of which is good for the Tour.

So the Tour will study the new IRS ruling, and the best guess is that before 1987 dawns, a new rule will call for fewer than 15 tournaments, and thus will bring both Ballesteros and Langer back. Meanwhile, Beman has another stone in his shoe. It seems he will have to go through the procedural formality of banning Langer and any other foreign golfer who misses the Morning briefing approves the 3 -point goal Willi: I to be negative." On the TV replay, Jones said: "If they cannot correct an error by normal channels that is by statistics or play-by-play there's nothing wrong with using a replay to correct something like a clock error." Jacksonville coach Bob Wenzel said he was totally against the three-point goal "from any distance. We've experimented with it in the Sun Belt Conference a few years back, and we didn't like it. I don't think many coaches do.

"I think perhaps we're fooling around with the rules too much," Wenzel said. Wyoming coach Jim Brandenburg attacked the committee's action. "The rules committee dropped a bombshell on the coaching profession," Brandenburg said. "We just got the 45-second clock. We should stabilize the game." Still, the coach did see the reasoning behind the change.

The use of the three-point line 19 feet, 9 inches from the basket would open up the game and lessen the congestion in the key, said Brandenburg. Iowa State coach Johnny Orr and Iowa assistant Ron Righter did high-fives over the three-point shot. "I'm not opposed to it at all," Orr said in a telephone interview from Ames. "Now you may recruit a guy who's a great shooter. It may open up the way for the smaller guys." By The Associated Press Coaches from Final Four teams yesterday expressed doubts about the NCAA decision to adopt a 19-foot, 9-inch three-point goal in college basketball next season.

They said it could make zone defenses obsolete. "I'm shocked that something like this has been passed at this time," said coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, which lost to Louisville in the championship final. "To me, the game seems to be great right now. This is a revolutionary change and I don't think it's good for the game right now. "We've just had a year of no chaos and now we're introducing chaos." The 12-member committee announced the rule change yesterday after studying the question for five years.

During that period 20 conferences experimented with the three-point shot, and a survey showed coaches approved it by a 2-to-l margin. Additionally, said rules committee director Dr. Edward S. Steitz, the change would put the "little man back in the game." The rules committee also approved use of instant replays to assist in scoring and timekeeping calls, videotaped replays would not be used to settle arguments over judgment calls such as fouls. "I think the three-pointer has merit, but I'm a little confused about the distance," said coach Larry Brown of Kansas, which lost to Louisville in the semifinals.

"I don't want it to be such an easy shot that it really becomes more important than "'in shocked that something like this has been passed at this time This is a revolutionary change and I don't think it's good (or the game right now. Mike Krzyzewski- anything, because I don't think that's the purpose; I do think that it'll open the game up a little more and probably won't see as many zones." Louisville assistant coach Jerry Jones, who said he was speaking for coach Denny Crura, said his first reaction was "that shot can cause as much harm as benefit because it's not a high percentage shot." "I think it's a way of legislating against zone defenses without really saying so," Jones said. "We put the shot clock in and if that didn't keep you out of the zone, we'll put the three-point play in to make you play man-to-man," Jones said the NCAA was seeming to say. "I'm very surprised to see it three-point goal pass," Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps said. "I didn't realize it was under serious consideration, based on the experimentation by major conferences a few years back, which generally seemed Herrmann appointed Navy coach From local and wire dispatches The Pitt and Navy basketball programs announced personnel changes yesterday.

The Naval Academy named Pete Herrmann, 37, as its new head coach. Paul Evans, who left Navy last week to become head coach at Pitt, completed his own coaching staff by hiring Mark Coleman, 24, a former player for him at St. Lawrence, as an assistant coach, and saying that John Calipari, an assistant to former Pitt basketball coach Roy Chip-man, would remain. Evans indicated last week that Calipari would be retained if Herrmann, his top assistant at Navy, were promoted. If Herrmann had not been named head coach at Navy, there was a possibility that he would have joined Evans at Pitt.

"We believe that Pete Herrmann can sustain the excellent program which Paul Evans structured during his six years at Navy," said Navy Athletic Director Bo Coppedge. Coleman, an assistant last season at George Mason in Washington, D.C., said: "I'm very excited to be working at Pitt. It's a great university, and there is a lot of potential to have a great team." More basketball Chicago Bulls guard Quintin Dailey has requested and been granted a leave of absence for the remainder of the season because of drug problems. Dailey entered a drug rehabilitation center last October and admitted drug use again Feb. 5.

Under an agreement between the league and its players' union, a player who continues on drugs after being sent for rehabilitation twice can be banned for life. Archie Marshall, the Kansas reserve forward who injured his knee Saturday against Duke, suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament and will miss all of next season, doctors said. In the district A Monongalia County, W.Va., grand jury yesterday declined to indict three West Virginia University football players charged with a fight in which three downtown bar employees were injured. Junior John Holifield, the Mountaineers' starting tailback, redshirt freshman running back Craig Taylor and redshirt freshman wide receiver Keith Winn TV g- 1 Drug problem to keep Quintin Dailey out for rest of season. had been charged with felonious assault after the Dec.

8 brawl outside Eric's LTD. Sal LaQuatra, 21, of Pittsburgh, a graduate of Keystone Oaks High School, lost a 5-0 decision to Arthur Johnson in the flyweight (112 pounds) division quarterfinals at the U.S. Amateur Boxing Championships in Beaumont, Texas. Michael Moorer of Monessen took a 4-1 decision over Patrick Ready, a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., in a 156-pound bout. Football Dan Marino is going international.

The former Pitt quarterback, now employed by the Miami Dolphins, has agreed to co-host a quarterback clinic in England with his Miami backup, Don Strock. "Our quarterbacks are sort of desperate for instruction," said Chris Childs, the commissioner of an English amateur league. Four University of Nevada-Las Vegas football players are scheduled to appear in court today on charges relating to the possession of stolen stereo equipment. Elsewhere Dan Dorian, the leading scorer in college hockey this season, has signed a multi-year contract with the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League. An all-star baseball team from Nicaragua said it has accepted an invitation to compete in a league in the Los Angeles area this summer Jimmy Connors, just starting a 10-week suspension, will be able to play in the Beckenham tournament, a tuneup for Wimbledon, tournament organizers said.

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"If you repeat this to anyone, I'll deny I said it," the general manager said. He then asked Feeney to make direct or indirect contact with George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees, and probe possible Yankee interest in a trade for Rhoden. Noting that conducting preliminary trade negotiations did not fall within his job description, Feeney asked why Thrift did not approach Steinbrenner directly. Protocol, Thrift explained. Although he thought Steinbrenner might be more receptive than his general manager, Clyde King, to making such a trade, he did not wish to offend King by going over King's head.

Thrift would go farther still to make a deal for Jason Thompson. Poor as they are, he said, the Pirates would be willing to pay a portion of Thompson's estimated $1.2 million annual salary if that would facilitate a trade for him. How large a portion? A good guess would be $400,000 a year For the two years remaining on Thompson's contract. Either Thompson or outfielder Lee Mazzilli would make some 1 lf American League team a fine designated hitter, Thrift said. And he might even be persuaded to give up one of them for a minor-league prospect.

Rather than exacerbate the already-crowded conditions in the Pirate clubhouse, he would prefer "a ballplayer who can play at Prince William," the Pirates' farm team in the Class A Carolina League. To date, Thrift has not been able to attract even that small a ransom for Thompson or Mazzilli. "But it ain't over with yet," he cautioned. If Mazzilli remains unclaimed freight, the Pirates probably will swallow hard and pay off the remaining two years of his contract. But it is doubtful they can swallow hard enough to pay Thompson to walk away.

Thompson is expendable because, in Sid Bream, the Pirates have another, younger left-handed power hitter who plays first base. "If you don't move Thompson," Thrift was asked, "what do you do with him and Bream?" "We're going to take one of them and hit fly balls to him," the general manager said. You believe that one, the man has a couple of bird dogs he'd like to discuss with you. More locations for your convenience Personal tire-buying assistance Full selection of America's favorite tires State-of-the-art service for your car or light truck RAM CHICK -II sen out ol youi sue will issue you 1 wi check, assuring future Delivery ai the advenised price PRICES, LIMITED WARRANTIES AND CREDIT TERMS SHOWN ARE AVAILABLE AT GOODYEAR AUTO SERVICE CENTERS. SEE ANY OF THE BELOW LISTED INDEPENDENT DEALERS FOR THEIR COMPETITIVE PRICES.

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