PGA Tour Adds to Victory List

Sam Snead’s record of 81 official PGA Tour victories increased by one Monday when the tour finally decided to count British Opens won before 1995.

The change also means Greg Norman, a two-time British Open champion, can play on the tour as long he likes.

Snead, who won at St. Andrews in 1946, now is credited with 82 wins, nine more than Jack Nicklaus, whose total increases to 73 with his three British Open titles.

The British Open is golf’s oldest championship tournament, dating to 1860, but the tour did not recognize it as official until 1995. The change in records will not be effective until the 2003 season.

Norman won 18 times on the tour, but his British Open victories in 1986 and 1993 did not count. With 20 victories, he is eligible for lifetime membership.

Norman, 47, gave up his membership for 2002 because he’d failed to play at least 12 events the previous year.

Hockey

Dallas Stars’ owner Tom Hicks has hired a company to explore a possible sale of the NHL team and his half-share of the company that manages and operates the American Airlines Center.

Any sale would not affect his ownership of the Texas Rangers, his major league baseball team.

Colorado left wing Alex Tanguay agreed to a one-year contract. Financial terms were not disclosed.... Calgary re-signed left wing Craig Berube and signed Czech defenseman Jan Vodrazka. Details of the contracts were not announced.... Edmonton re-signed left wing Mike York to a three-year contract.

Horse Racing

Trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the last six runnings of the Del Mar Futurity, will field five of the race’s eight starters for the closing-day feature Wednesday.

The Baffert horses--none will be coupled in the betting because of separate ownerships--are Icecoldbeeratreds, Friendly Mike, Bull Market, Kafwain and Chief Planner.

The other entrants in the Futurity are Total Advantage, Outta Here and Gentlemen’s Club.

On Monday, Siberland, ridden by Laffit Pincay, scored a six-length win over Martinblestme in the $100,000 I’m Smokin Stakes.

Siberland, paying $4.60 as the favorite, posted his second win of the season after finishing fourth and second in his first two starts at Hollywood Park.

Miscellany

Gil de Ferran, in contention for the Indy Racing League title, was released from a suburban Chicago hospital but won’t be allowed to race in the season finale Sunday at Fort Worth.

De Ferran suffered a concussion and broke his left wrist when he crashed into the wall Sunday in the Delphi Indy 300 at Chicagoland Raceway.

UC Irvine will introduce Bob Chichester as its new athletic director at news conference today at the Bren Center. Chichester was a senior associate athletic director at Colorado.

The International Skating Union said it was “delighted” with a test of its new judging system at the Nebelhorn Trophy event last weekend in Germany, and said the proposed judging and scoring system requires further work before it can be finalized and put into effect for the 2003-04 season.

Under the new system, the judges whose marks determined skaters’ scores were selected randomly by a computer.

The new scoring system involves cumulative points based on a series of values assigned to various elements.

Passings

Jerome Biffle, the 1952 Olympic long jump gold medalist, died Wednesday in Denver of pulmonary fibrosis.

He was 74.