Hole in One Here Isn’t Out of the Ord-inary

You’ve heard of golfers getting into a groove. How about a golf course in a groove?

It happened last Sunday at Ord Golf Club, when three golfers scored holes in one within about 20 minutes of one another during an American Legion fund-raising tournament in Ord, Neb.

First, Fred Williams, a teacher and the golf coach at Ord High, aced the 180-yard seventh hole. Then, as Williams watched from the ninth tee a few minutes later, Rick Gamel made a hole in one on the 156-yard ninth hole.

“I thought, ‘Man that is something, two holes in one almost right in a row,’ ” Williams said.

Twenty minutes later, Roland Shafer made it three, also acing No. 7.

“It was like a big vacuum in the center of the earth,” Shafer said. “It was just drawing these golf balls in there.”

Happens all the time.

Trivia time: This season, Ken Griffey Jr., Matt Williams and others were on or close to record paces in various hitting departments. Who were the major league leaders in the triple crown categories for the last season shortened significantly by a strike, 1981?

Add trivia: Who were the Cy Young and most-valuable-player award winners in 1981?

There’s no escape: Buffalo Bill offensive lineman Kent Hull says that after losing four consecutive Super Bowls, the Bills know it’s inevitable that they will continually be reminded about their failures.

“I’m in Las Vegas, the cab driver is from Nigeria, he’s giving me a Buffalo Bills joke,” Hull said. “You can’t escape it.”

Just for starters: Do NFL teams pay attention to statistics?

Jim Everett and Jeff George, two of the NFL’s more talented enigmas, are a combined 60-94 as starting quarterbacks. Everett, the New Orleans Saints’ new No. 1 quarterback, is 46-59; George, the new Atlanta Falcons’ starter, 14-35.

In case you’re curious, their respective backups this season, Wade Wilson for the Saints and Bobby Hebert for the Falcons, are a combined 88-64 as starters. Wilson is 35-30, Hebert 53-34.

Trivia answer: Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies won the home run title with 31 and led the majors with 91 runs batted in. The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bill Madlock led batters with a .341 average.

Add trivia answer: The Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela won the National League Cy Young and Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers was the American League winner, as well as the league MVP. Schmidt was the MVP in the NL.

Quotebook: New Orleans Saint kicker Morten Andersen, on the new NFL rules that are designed to minimize the influence of the kicking games: “It makes no sense to me to penalize somebody because they are successful. If the quarterback is good, what are you going to do, make the end zone smaller so he doesn’t throw so many touchdowns?”