Even That Gopher Couldn’t Stop Him

What would the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am be without a Bill Murray sighting?

On Wednesday, the comedian and amateur golfer chipped in a 90-footer for an eagle on the par-five 18th hole at Pebble Beach to win the Celebrity Challenge, a five-hole event featuring six two-man celebrity teams.

The sand wedge shot on the final hole earned Murray and his partner, Andy Garcia, $9,500 each for their charities.

“I knew as soon as I hit it,” Murray, the star of the classic golf comedy “Caddyshack,” joked with reporters.

Asked if he was willing to give tips to the tournament’s pros, Murray was more modest, according to Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle. “They’ve got to ask me,” Murray said. “I’m not gonna push my game on other people.”

Trivia time: Which country has won the most medals in the Winter Olympics and which athlete from that country leads the way with a record 12 medals?

Ringing ‘em in: Greg Cote of the Miami Herald wrote that there are a couple of changes to the Winter Olympics this time around: “The IOC has added one new winter event beginning this year: synchronized underwater ice fishing.

“They also have combined three events: curling, luge and biathlon. In the new event, curlathluge, luge sledders hurtling at 60 mph attempt to avoid curling discs being swept onto the track while chased and shot at by skiers with rifles.”

Mistake by the Alps: On the Winter Olympics host city, Rick Maese of the Baltimore Sun wrote: “Turin aesthetically reminds you of Cleveland -- only with a color palette that solely consists of grays. ‘It’s beautiful in the summer,’ an Italian journalist told me. ‘But in the winter, you wouldn’t know it from Prague.’ ”

Some grip: When ice skater Ani Zoltany, 29, fell into the freezing waters of Hungary’s Lake Velence, the only way she could survive the frostbite in her hands was to hold onto the edge of the broken ice with her teeth.

According to a report on www.ananova.com, help arrived 10 minutes later. She was taken to a hospital and treated for hypothermia.

“As if getting treated for hypothermia weren’t bad enough,” wrote Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times, “now comes word that Olympic judges docked her two-tenths of a point for the water landing.”

Looking back: On this date in 1989, in order to gain deregulation, the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) admitted in a New Jersey court that pro wrestling is an exhibition and not a sport.

Not that you didn’t already know that, right? Right?

Trivia answers: Norway has won 263 medals, followed by the Soviet Union with 194 and the U.S. with 193. Counts include figure skating medals (1908 and 1920) and hockey medals (1920) awarded at the Summer Games.

Bjorn Daehlie, a cross-country skier, won his medals from 1992 to 1998.

And finally: Among David Letterman’s top 10 reasons he’s looking forward to the upcoming Games: “Olympics are an excellent predictor of who will win the Nobel Prize in snowboarding.”