He Won’t Remind Anyone of Sam Snead

Here’s a contest a lot of golfers could qualify for: World’s Worst Swing. The Golf Channel began asking for tape submissions in January, and today at 4:30 p.m. the winner will be announced on the air. A finalist is Brian Weir, 36, of Valencia, a major in the Air Force.

So how bad is Weir’s swing?

He said he has had a lesson only twice during the 14 years he has been playing golf, and the first time his instructor saw his swing, he said, “Don’t do that again. Just looking at the swing might ruin my game.”

Trivia time: Before Secretariat in 1973, who was the previous winner of the Triple Crown of horse racing?

Good call: NBC tennis commentator Mary Carillo, before the men’s final of the French Open on Sunday, said of Rafael Nadal, “Everything he has done leads us to believe he will be the ‘King of Clay’ after today.”

Another certainty: Unseeded Argentine Mariano Puerta, who lost to Nadal in Sunday’s final, isn’t even mentioned in this year’s ATP media guide.

“We know one thing,” Carillo said, “this guy will make the ATP media guide next year. There are 181 players in this year’s guide, and Puerta was ranked 186 last year.”

Winning can be hazardous: A little over a week ago at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, driver Jaime Camara crashed into a wall while spinning doughnuts to celebrate winning an Infiniti Pro Series race.

On Sunday, Greg Biffle did the same thing after winning the Nextel Cup race on the Monster Mile at Dover, Del. Biffle smacked the wall just as crew chief Doug Richert was telling a television interviewer, “He drove the wheels off the thing.”

Indeed he did.

Not always the man’s fault: David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, on co-car owner Bobby Rahal’s decision to let Danica Patrick finish the Indianapolis 500 with a near-empty gas tank: “Patrick might not have become the first woman to win the Indy 500, but she did make history by becoming the first woman not to blame a man for leaving her with a car low on fuel.”

Ultimate patriot: George Mikan, who died last week at 80, was the first commissioner of the American Basketball Assn. Bill Sharman, who coached in the ABA, credits Mikan with the idea of using red, white and blue basketballs.

Sharman, who will represent the Lakers at the funeral for Mikan today in Scottsdale, Ariz., said, “He wanted to remind everyone that basketball is an American sport.”

Looking back: On this day in 1987, Bet Twice, ridden by Craig Perret, breezed to a 14-length victory in the Belmont Stakes to deny Alysheba the Triple Crown. Alysheba was a distant fourth.

Trivia answer: Citation in 1948, with Eddie Arcaro aboard.

And finally: Jay Leno, on Donald Trump’s starting an online university: “It’s a school where you don’t have to attend classes in person -- or as Ohio State calls it, the football program.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.