This Time, Norman Didn’t Have to Press

Greg Norman won the World Series of Golf on Sunday, just as he had two years ago, but tournament director Jim Cook says he enjoyed this one more.

In the 1995 tournament, Norman accused playing partner Mark McCumber of improving his putting line by removing a blade of grass on the seventh hole in the first round.

“As mad as I was, I could have bench-pressed 500 pounds, that’s how mad I was,” Norman said after the round.

He refused to sign McCumber’s scorecard, then went on to win the tournament.

“No problems this year,” said Cook, although he was disappointed that his son, John, fell back after having been the third-round leader.

Trivia time: Which was the last team to shut out UCLA in football?

Looking back: The defunct American Basketball Assn. is celebrating its 30-year anniversary and former Indiana Pacer coach Bob Leonard says today’s game has a debt to the ABA.

“We revolutionized basketball with the three-point play,” Leonard said. “They use it in high school now, they use it in college and they use it in the pro game. It is a major part of the game.”

But what about the red, white and blue ball?

Looking ahead: Larry Bird says one of his biggest concerns as rookie coach of the Pacers will be staying awake for the night games.

“I got used to going to bed about 9 every night [during retirement] ‘cause I like to get up early. Early morning is the best and quietest and most beautiful part of the day. In fact, I asked the Pacers to start their games at 7 so I can stay awake for the last quarter.”

One man’s view: After San Diego Padre third baseman Ken Caminiti was thrown out of the game by umpire Greg Bonin for arguing a called strike, he said, “The guy is just above the game and he’s going to be here for life and he can make any call he wants to make. I just don’t think that he can go home tonight and think he did the right thing.”

Spoil sports: It could have been a wet night in Brussels if Belgian police had not ruled that spectators at the Van Damme Memorial track meet could not get a free beer if a world record was broken.

A Belgian brewery had offered the free suds to the 39,000 spectators as an incentive to get them behind the athletes. Two records were broken, but no one got free beer.

Meet organizer Wilfried Meert said that police “were afraid people would behave strangely in the streets after receiving the beer.”

Trivia answer: Washington State, 21-0 in 1994.

And finally: The Silver Bullets women’s baseball team is completing its fourth season and Phil Niekro, a recent Hall of Fame inductee and the team’s general manager, is pleased with their improvement.

“Someday, if baseball will allow it, there will be women players in the big leagues,” Niekro said. “With time, they can be that good.”