Former Masters and U.S. Open Winner Cary Middlecoff Dies

Cary Middlecoff, a two-time U.S. Open champion and winner of the 1955 Masters, died Tuesday of heart failure in Memphis, Tenn. He was 77.

A former dentist, Middlecoff won 40 professional golf tournaments and is tied for seventh on the PGA’s victory list.

When back surgery forced Middlecoff to retire from competitive golf in 1963, he had about won $290,000, among the sport’s leading career money winners.

He won the U.S. Open in 1949 and 1956.

Middlecoff had been in poor health for several years. A fall at his home in 1993 resulted in a severe head injury. He had not played golf, even casually, since the early 1990s.

On the PGA Tour, he was the leading money winner for the decade of the 1950s. In 1986 he was inducted into the PGA World Golf Hall of Fame.

Names in the News

Mike Tyson’s boxing future became murkier Tuesday after police in a suburb of Washington, D.C., said he had punched one man in the chest and kicked another in the groin after a minor traffic accident a day earlier.

The incident in Gaithersburg, Md., occurred less than three weeks before Nevada boxing authorities meet to decide whether Tyson, on suspension for biting Evander Holyfield’s ears during their fight in June 1997, can resume his career.

“This complicates matters,” a source close to the Nevada commission said.

There were no serious injuries in Monday’s altercation--though Tyson later complained of chest pains and was treated at a hospital emergency room--and no arrests were made. Police classified it as a “misdemeanor assault” and said it would be up to the other men if they wanted to seek charges.

The two men, who remain unidentified, have contacted lawyers and are considering filing charges against Tyson.

Members of the Nevada Athletic Commission said they will want an explanation when Tyson appears before them Sept. 19.

An Atlanta woman who claimed she had been bitten, choked and threatened with a pistol by Anthony Peeler of the Minnesota Timberwolves, a former Laker, has been awarded $2.4 million in damages by a jury in St. Louis. Angela Link was Peeler’s girlfriend at the University of Missouri.

Demetrius DuBose, a former captain at Notre Dame who went on to play in the NFL, was arrested after allegedly creating a disturbance in a downtown nightclub, police at South Bend, Ind., said.

DuBose, 27, was charged Sunday with battery by bodily waste (spitting on an off-duty officer), criminal mischief, resisting law enforcement, disorderly conduct and possession of marijuana.

Defenseman Al Iafrate retired after 13 seasons in the NHL and less than two months after the Carolina Hurricanes acquired him in hopes he could renew a career hampered by chronic knee injuries.

The Kings signed defenseman Jaroslav Modry to a one-year contract. Last season, Modry scored 33 points in 74 games with the Utah Grizzlies of the International Hockey League.

The NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes signed free-agent left wing Greg Adams to a one-year contract. Terms of the deal, which includes an option year, weren’t disclosed.

Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks won the women’s 100 in meet-record time of 10.81 seconds at the ISTAF Golden League track and field meet in Berlin.

New Mexico Athletic Director Rudy Davalos has appealed a Western Athletic Conference decision to oust him from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee. The conference contends that Davalos cannot belong to the committee because New Mexico plans to leave the WAC.

Auto Racing

Jeff Gordon, addressing the flap over tires on the Winston Cup circuit, slipped away from reporters after a testing session at Atlanta Motor Speedway but later said during a radio interview that the owner of a rival car owes his team an apology.

NASCAR impounded tires from Gordon’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo after his victory Sunday in the CMT 300 at Loudon, N.H., along with tires from the Ford driven by second-place finisher Mark Martin.

Rival teams, led by Martin’s car owner, Jack Roush, complained that Gordon must have been doing something illegal when he managed to pull away in the final 50 laps even though he took only two fresh tires on his last pit stop and everyone else put on four.

“I hate to stir up all this controversy, but all we’re trying to do is win races,” Gordon said on the radio show “NASCAR Live.”

“I have a lot of respect for Mark Martin and all the guys on the Valvoline team. They race us hard. I feel like they’re within the rules and we’re within the rules.

“The only disappointing thing to me is Jack Roush kind of took away from our win. I lost a lot of respect for Jack. I hope he’ll apologize to our team.”

Horse Racing

Jockey Mike Smith’s second major spill of the year will leave him sidelined for four months.

Smith, the leading rider at the Saratoga meeting in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., fell off his mount, Dacron, nearing the first turn Monday in a chain-reaction spill also involving Bid Your Hand and She Belongs To Me.

Smith, who broke two vertebrae in the spill, was listed in fair condition at Albany Medical Center.

Dr. Allen Carl said the jockey suffered no neurological damage and has a normal range of motion but will be in a body cast for about two months. Surgery will not be necessary.

Miscellany

A soccer game that neither team tried to win touched off a controversy during the Tiger Cup tournament in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Indonesia finally succeeded by putting the ball in its own net with time running out, giving Thailand a 3-2 victory Monday night.

“Thailand and Indonesia shame soccer--Fans in fury as two teams serve up a farce,” said the headline in Tuesday’s Bangkok Post.

The reason for the strategy: The winner of Group A was to fly to Hanoi to face Vietnam in the semifinals today, National Day in Vietnam. That is a big home-field advantage, given the enthusiasm of Hanoi’s fans. The game has been postponed to Thursday.

The University of Arizona signed a five-year, $7-million free-equipment contract with Nike Inc. that also gives coaches a $435,000 annual pay boost.

The five-year contract, long in negotiation and under fire after Nike came under criticism for alleged human rights abuses in its Southeast Asia plants, will supply athletic shoes, equipment and uniforms for most of the university’s intercollegiate athletic teams--a total of nearly $819,000 a year in retail value.

The deal gives the university an out that was promised after students staged a protest: If an outside monitor finds fault with Nike’s labor practices in overseas plants and the company fails to fix them, the university may cancel the contract.

The PGA Tour will return to the Sierra in northern Nevada next summer for the first time since Ben Hogan won in Reno 50 years ago. Montreaux Golf & Country Club will host the Reno-Tahoe Open the third week of August through 2002.