• June Jones: I tried steroids • Sorenstam runs away with Nabisco • TPC will have Tuesday finish June Jones: I tried steroids HONOLULU — University of Hawaii football coach June Jones said he experimented with steroids decades ago when
• June Jones: I tried steroids
• Sorenstam runs away with Nabisco
• TPC will have Tuesday finish
June Jones: I tried steroids
HONOLULU — University of Hawaii football coach June Jones said he experimented with steroids decades ago when he was an NFL quarterback and little was known about the performance-enhancing drug’s negative effects.
Jones said a significant number of NFL players in his day used steroids, especially at positions that required larger players.
“If you played in the National Football League (in the 1970s and early 1980s), you did at one time,” Jones told reporters at a lunch on Saturday. “It was not illegal when I experimented with steroids.”
Jones said the drug, prescribed by his doctor in pill form, improved his playing skills tremendously.
“I went from 178 pounds to 215. I got stronger. I threw better,” he said.
He quit taking steroids, he said, because he didn’t need it anymore.
“I was a quarterback. I didn’t need to be any bigger than I was at that point,” Jones said.
While boosting strength, steroids also can lead to dramatic mood swings, heart disease, cancer, sterility and depression. Using most steroids without a doctor’s prescription for medical purposes has been illegal since 1991.
Jones said Hawaii’s football program tests players for steroids in accordance with NCAA rules. Jones said no one on the team has tested positive, but couldn’t say for sure whether abuse of the drug exists among players.
“So, does it happen? Who knows?” he said.
Sorenstam runs away with Nabisco
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The suspense was over before the leaders left the putting green and headed for the first tee. The question wasn’t whether Annika Sorenstam would win her fifth straight tournament and the first major championship of the year, but by how much.
Plenty, it turned out, as Sorenstam turned a runaway into a blowout Sunday, shooting a final-round 68 to finish at 15 under and win the Nabisco Championship by eight shots. In doing so, the most dominant player in golf not only added another entry to the LPGA Tour record books, but showed that the best may be yet to come.
She also got very wet, getting doused in champagne after sinking her putt before taking the traditional winner’s plunge into the pond next to the 18th green along with her sister, Charlotta, and her mother, Gunilla.
The win was Sorenstam’s fifth in a row over two seasons, tying a record set by Nancy Lopez in 1978. It was also the 59th of the Swedish star’s LPGA Tour career — and her eighth major championship win.
Honolulu amateur phenom Michelle Wie finished outside the top 10 for the first time in three years in the Nabisco, shooting a 71 to finish at even par, 15 shots back.
TPC will have Tuesday finish
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The Players Championship turned into a wet, controversial mess Sunday when yet another round of storms all but promised to extend the PGA Tour’s most prestigious event into six days.
Only two rounds of the TPC have been completed.
Luke Donald of England played nine holes — six in the morning to complete his second round at 4-under 68 and join three others in the 36-hole lead at 10-under 134; then three in the afternoon before rumbles of thunder heralded the arrival of heavy rain that pounded the TPC at Sawgrass.
Players were sent home 2 1/2 hours later, with Donald and Joe Durant tied at 11 under. Tim Herron, who tied the tournament record with six straight birdies, was one shot behind along with defending champion Adam Scott, Lee Westwood and Zach Johnson.
Tiger Woods was fortunate to still be playing. He extended his record cut streak to 140, but just barely.
By the time he got to No. 18 at 2 under par, the cut had dropped to 1 under. He made bogey to make the cut on the number.
