O’Grady Is Ready to Retire, but He Will Still Play Golf Now and Zen

In case you’re wondering what’s going on in the life of Mac O’Grady, the freest of golf’s free spirits, here’s the scoop, according to Owen Canfield of the Hartford Courant:

“O’Grady will quit the PGA Tour at the end of this golf season, and this is the schedule he plans to adopt: Two months of the year he’ll travel in conjunction with the book he is writing with Gary McCord; for four months, he and his wife, Fumiko Aoyagi, will live in Hawaii; and six months of the year, the O’Gradys will live in Japan, at the base of Mount Fuji, where O’Grady will become what he calls a Zen gardener.

“ ‘Here’s how it will be,’ O’Grady said. “We’ll work from 7 to 11 in the morning; lunch will be from 11 to 12; 12 to 1, a siesta; 1 to 3, nine holes of golf; 3 to 5, seven innings of baseball.’ �

And why is Mac doing this? “ ‘I’m 38 but I’m old enough to retire. I figure each of the 17 times I went through the qualifying school, it aged me a year, and every year I spent on the tour, seven of them, aged me a year. So I’m 62. That’s retirement age.’ �

17 years ago today: The United States men’s basketball team lost for the first time in Olympic competition. The Soviet Union won the controversial game, 51-50.

The final three seconds were played over by order of R. William Jones, secretary general of the International Amateur Basketball Federation from Great Britain. The United States protested in vain that Jones had illegally interfered by telling the official timekeeper and game officials to allow the Soviets a second chance. The U.S. team refused to accept the silver medal.

Trivia time: The U.S. got its first lead of that game in those final seconds, 50-49, on two free by which player?

How about a quick kick?: Quarterback Vinny Testaverde of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coming off a miserable season, sees good things ahead. “I love this offense now,� he told the Orlando Sentinel. “Last year, there were a lot of times we would have a play called and I would walk up to the line and say, ‘This is not going to work.’ And I wouldn’t have anything to check off to.’ �

Trivia answer: Illinois State’s Doug Collins.

Quotebook: Islamorada Irv, who cashes winning tickets for horse players so they can avoid heavy taxes, told Paul Moran of Newsday: “A guy like Pete Rose may not be good for baseball’s image, but he’s a hell of a guy to have in your race track. He’s a player and he’s rich.�