Daly Will Return to PGA Tour March 10

John Daly’s suspension from the PGA Tour will end March 10 when he competes in the Honda tournament at Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., the PGA Tour said Tuesday.

The four-month suspension was imposed by Deane Beman, tour commissioner, on Nov. 6 after Daly failed to complete pro-am play in the second round of a tournament in Hawaii.

It came on the heels of a series of off-the-course incidents involving Daly, whose personal and professional life has been in turmoil since he became an instant hero with a victory in the 1991 PGA Championship.

Auto Racing

NASCAR spokesman Chip Williams backed off his claim that driver error caused the crash that killed Neil Bonnett, but said an inspection found nothing wrong with the car.

“I made a bad mistake by trying to sum it all up in a couple of words and attributed it to driver error. That’s probably way too strong,” Williams told the Birmingham News in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Other drivers took exception to NASCAR blaming the crash on an error by Bonnett, who had 18 Winston Cup victories but had not driven regularly since a 1990 crash left him with temporary amnesia.

Bobby Hillin Jr., a veteran of 10 Daytona 500s, led qualifying in the third and final round of time trials for Sunday’s race with a fast lap of 188.281 m.p.h.

John Andretti, a Winston Cup rookie but a former winner on the Indy-car circuit, enhanced his chances of making his first Daytona start by following Hillin with a lap of 187.649.

Beecher Orr, father of Rodney Orr, the driver killed in a practice accident Monday at Daytona, and car owner John Page have decided to race Orr’s Goody’s Dash series car in the Florida 200 Friday at Daytona International Speedway with Robert Huffman as the driver.

Tennis

Two-time defending champion Zina Garrison Jackson beat Romania’s Catalina Cristea, 6-0, 6-4, in the first round of the IGA Tennis Classic at Oklahoma City, Okla. She will play former U.S. Open champion Tracy Austin in tonight’s second round.

Jim Grabb, sidelined the past nine months because of a shoulder injury, beat Louis Gloria, 7-5, 6-2, in the first round of the U.S. Indoor tournament in Philadelphia.

In other matches, Greg Rusedski edged Jared Palmer, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-3); Alex O’Brien used 13 aces to overpower Byron Black, 7-5, 7-6 (8-6), and Jonathan Stark beat Stefano Pescosolido, 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-3).

College Basketball

The Atlantic 10 has upheld Temple University’s one-game suspension of Coach John Chaney and will not punish him further for his outburst against Massachusetts Coach John Calipari Sunday.

Chaney’s suspension is for tonight’s conference game at St. Bonaventure.

St. John’s, struggling to avoid its first losing season in 30 years, lost leading scorer and rebounder Shawnelle Scott for the rest of the season because of a torn ligament in his right thumb.

New Mexico State University regents say basketball Coach Neil McCarthy will get a $50,000 annual bonus--if his players maintain a team grade-point average of 2.0 or better.

In a news release, university officials said the amendment would be incumbent upon the men’s basketball team achieving a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or better. Whether to award the bonus would be determined at the end of each school year.

Baseball

Infielder Pat Kelly won his arbitration case against the New York Yankees and will be paid $810,000 this season, more than five times the $160,000 he earned in 1993. . . . Infielder John Valentin and the Boston Red Sox agreed on a one-year contract. . . . St. Louis Cardinal third baseman Todd Zeile, who earned $1.025 million last season, will play for $2.7 million after losing his arbitration bid for $3.25 million.

Names in the News

Dr. Jamie Astaphan, who gave Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson steroids that cost him an Olympic gold medal, pleaded innocent to charges of plotting to sell cocaine and steroids in Florida. . . . Two days after collapsing in an amateur boxing tournament at St. Paul, Minn., Donell Lindsey, 28, of St. Paul died after being taken off a life-support system. . . . Leroy (Spike) Gibson, a former Harlem Globetrotter and the first black elected official in South Miami, Fla., died of cancer at 57.