View From Prison Window Inspired Golfer’s Comeback

David Nissenbaum, 40, qualified last week for the U.S. Amateur golf tournament starting in Denver Aug. 21. He last qualified for it in 1970, a year after he quit the University of Iowa’s golf team.

Nissenbaum says his comeback was inspired by his view from Allenwood federal prison in Pennsylvania.

He told the Springfield, Mass., Union-News: “I could see a golf course through the windows.”

Nissenbaum was released in 1987 after having been convicted for his role in a 1980 smuggling operation off the coast of Maine that federal authorities said involved 21 tons of marijuana.

Add Nissenbaum: The former Massachusetts high school champion said that since his release, he has been playing golf less and enjoying it more.

“I don’t take it as seriously now,” he said.

Trivia time: In golf, what is an albatross?

Four-wheeled frolic: Ontario’s Eddie Lawson and his team manager, Kenny Roberts, in Anderstorp, Sweden, for today’s Swedish Grand Prix motorcycle race, were fined for speeding Friday as they drove to the race course in rented cars.

Lawson, clocked by local police at 100 m.p.h., easily out-dueled Roberts, who reached only 83 m.p.h. in the same 56-m.p.h. (100 kilometers) zone. Lawson’s fine was the equivalent of $171, Lawson’s $137.

Perfessorial logic: Joe Gergen of Newsday, in a column on the New York Mets’ fielding troubles, recalled a remark by Casey Stengel, who finished his 25-year managerial career with his stint as the Mets’ first manager from 1962-65.

After the Mets had made Hobie Landrith the first choice in the expansion draft, Stengel said: “If you don’t have a catcher, you have a lot of passed balls.”

Dome the country: The Associated Press reported that a Japanese baseball game in the Tokyo Dome was postponed because of rain Friday night.

The Hanshin Tigers were unable to travel to their game with the Yomiuri Giants when typhoon Winona dumped heavy rain on central Japan.

The cancellation was the first of its kind since Japan’s only domed stadium opened in 1988.

Tackle this: Before last season, San Francisco 49er tackle Bubba Paris’ weight problem kept him in former coach Bill Walsh’s doghouse. Walsh is gone, but Paris’ problem persists.

This year, though, he lost 37 pounds between the 49ers’ mini-camp in May and the opening of training camp in late July.

Said Paris: “I’m just now getting from where I looked like a whale to where I look like a normal fat human being.”

Jury of his peer: From Tom Whitfield of the Atlanta Journal: The Aug. 9, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated carried this remark:

“I’m really proud of the fact that I’m as good a pitcher as he is, maybe better. You look at a guy like him and you think he’s a little foolish. He always makes the same mistakes. He fools around and gets behind, then has to come in with his fastball. Everybody knows it and can wait for it.”

The speaker was Al Fitzmorris of Kansas City, whose record from 1969-78 was 77-59 with the Royals and Indians.

Fitzmorris was talking about Nolan Ryan.

Talk about grousing: From Maev Kennedy of the Guardian: “When the English grouse shooting season officially opens Monday, the Hunt Saboteurs Assn. expects more than 500 of its members to be standing in front of guns.

“The action is planned for several days and also includes ‘dawn beat lines’ to clear moors of grouse in Wales, the Northwest, the Northeast, Yorkshire and Scotland before shooters arrive.”

Trivia answer: A double eagle.

Quotebook: Forrest Gregg, Southern Methodist football coach and athletic director, on Arkansas’ leaving the Southwest Conference for the Southeastern Conference: “It’s not like oxygen, water or food.”