News In Brief

NO ONE WENT HOME A LOSER

It's customary for the players to leave the field when the bands march at halftime of a football game. But for the teams not to be in the stadium at all is highly unusual. Yet, that's what happened last Friday in the Tampa suburb of Valrico, Fla. The musicians ended up being the only attraction at what was supposed to be a contest between Sarasota-Riverview and Bloomingdale high schools. But the game had to be forfeited after 33 of Bloomingdale's players were suspended because of a brawl the week before. No problem, at least for one of the band directors. "We've worked too hard," he said, "to stop this performance just because the team got into a fight."

1999 wins rank Tiger Woods among pro golf's greatest

His victory in the World Golf Championship last weekend at Sotogrande, Spain, made Tiger Woods the first professional since Ben Hogan (in 1953) to win four successive tournament titles. It was the eighth Professional Golfers Association championship of the year and the ninth worldwide for Woods, who is still in his early 20s. Sunday's win earned him $1 million and brought his official earnings for 1999 to a whopping $6,616,585. The golfers who won the most PGA Tour victories in a calendar year:

Byron Nelson (1945) 18

Ben Hogan (1946) 13

Sam Snead (1950) 11

Ben Hogan (1948) 10

Paul Runyan (1933) 9

Horton Smith (1929) 8

Gene Sarazen (1930) 8

Sam Snead (1938) 8

Byron Nelson (1944) 8

Arnold Palmer (1960) 8

Johnny Miller (1974) 8

Tiger Woods (1999) 8

- The New York Times

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society