Funk

Warming up yesterday morning on the practice range at Baltimore Country Club for the opening round of the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Fred Funk suddenly turned into John Daly or Tiger Woods or some other long hitter. "I was so excited because I was hitting them out of sight," Funk joked after shooting a 2-under-par 68. "I had never done that before." Actually, Funk was just hitting his shots out of his sight, which, considering the heavy fog that made the Five Farms course look like Pebble Beach, was probably not as far as he thought.

NEW ORLEANS -- With less than a second left in overtime and Nevada's two-possession lead guaranteeing victory, coach Mark Fox wrapped an arm around senior forward Nick Fazekas and whispered into his ear. "I told him I was proud of him," Fox said after the Wolf Pack's 77-71 victory over Creighton yesterday. "I told him that it would come back to him. And that he gets to play another day." Fazekas, the cornerstone of Nevada's ascension to national prominence the past four seasons, watched the final 3:06 of overtime from the bench after fouling out. As he sat, guards Kyle Shiloh, Marcelus Kemp and Ramon Sessions combined to score the No. 7 seed Wolf Pack's final 14 points.

They rap about fighting to avoid the drugs that saturate their bleak neighborhood streets, about staying alive in a community rife with guns and violence.The subject matter is conventional rap fodder. But the menacing environment the new rap trio Faces of Funk gets lyrical about isn't Compton or the South Bronx.But rather ... Annapolis Gardens.Yes, Annapolis. The starchy, historic-with-a-capital-H city many view as a more likely breeding ground for a German polka troupe than the next It-group in hip-hop.

Things are changing in the jazz world. Ideas drawn from funk, hip-hop and drum 'n' bass are changing the way rhythm sections play. Technological innovations are giving instrumentalists a much broader palette with which to play. Young audiences weaned on the Grateful Dead and Phish are discovering the intense improvisation of jazz.And John Scofield couldn't be happier."It's really a good time," he says, over the phone from his home in suburban New York. "There's a new audience for -- I'm not even going to say 'jazz,' but for music that stretches out. Instrumental music, and stuff with improvisation."

Officials of the state Injured Workers Insurance Fund told a task force yesterday that complying with the state public-records and open-meetings laws was creating perplexing problems for the agency, and a blanket exemption should be considered."

Quote: "This is an all-around team funk -- pitching, hitting, you name it. Our biorhythms are out of whack. That dastardly Venus is always getting in the way." --Mark Grace of the Cubs, whose team has lost nine of its past 10.It's a fact: The Expos' Vladimir Guerrero has played in an NL-best 210 consecutive games.Who's hot: The Brewers' Steve Woodard is 3-0 with a 1.30 ERA in four June starts.Who's not: The Dodgers' win yesterday was just their fifth in 19 games in June.On deck: Two of the top left-handers in the league meet tonight when the Braves' Tom Glavine -- who has struggled so far this season -- opposes the Diamondbacks' Randy Johnson.

POTOMAC -- It is not enough that Fred Funk has to contend with mental demons after his tie for second in the Colonial last week; now he has to deal with a physical ailment."

By most standards, Kirk Franklin is a raging success.At 29, he's the biggest-selling artist in gospel music. Where most gospel stars spend their time on the revival circuit, preaching to the choir, Franklin and his crew, The Family, are in the pop mainstream, with videos on MTV and cameo appearances by the likes of R. Kelly, Mary J. Blige and U2's Bono.His funk-based, rap-schooled gospel sound has clearly struck a chord with pop fans. Franklin's current album, "The Nu Nation Project," has moved more than a million units to date and continues to sell steadily.

POTOMAC -- He had a five-shot lead and seemed to be on the verge of lapping the field at the TPC at Avenel in the third round of the Kemper Open. He was doing his best imitation of Tiger Woods, cracking 300-yard drives and making one big putt after another.And then Fred Funk walked up the hill to the 13th tee yesterday afternoon.It was there he found two groups and more than a 20-minute wait ahead of him. It was also there that Funk lost his rhythm and,ultimately, much of his lead. He will find out today whether it was where he lost a tournament he had dominated since the opening round.

POTOMAC -- The eagles landed yesterday in the second round of the Kemper Open, two dozen of them all over the TPC at Avenel. They included three holes-in-one and were part of a record-setting, red-number day on which Fred Funk stretched his opening round lead from one shot to three.Funk had none of the eagles, and was only a witness to Justin Leonard's hole-in-one. But the former University of Maryland golf coach had five birdies in a 5-under par round of 66 that gave him a 36-hole tournament record of 12-under 130.With it, Funk leads three players, Australians Craig Parry and Stuart Appleby as well as Chris DiMarco by three shots.

Women's lacrosse Team USA beats Ireland, 22-5, will face England in semifinal Caroline Cryer had four goals, three assists and five draw controls, helping the United States rout Ireland, 22-5, in a Federation of International Lacrosse World Cup quarterfinal in Prague, Czech Republic. Team USA (5-0) will play England in a semifinal this morning. The Irish gave the Americans a brief scare when they took a 4-3 first-half lead on a goal by Krista Pellizzi (Maryland), but after a timeout the Americans scored the next 15 goals.

Cycling Menchov tumbles, gets up to win Giro; Armstrong 12th Denis Menchov won the Giro d'Italia despite falling in the final half-mile. The Russian lost control on rain-slicked cobblestones and slid for about 10 yards. He got right back up, ran ahead to his bike but then opted to take a spare bike provided by his team car. Menchov entered the final stage - an 8.95-mile individual time trial in Rome - with a 20-second lead on Danilo Di Luca and was comfortably ahead of the Italian at the final checkpoint before he fell.

Just when it seemed as if funk was all but gone from mainstream pop, the raw and uncompromising style has resurfaced thanks to an unlikely figure: a petite, flame-haired white woman with large, expressive eyes and a fierce musical attitude. But Nikka Costa isn't exactly new to the scene. The daughter of legendary composer-arranger Don Costa and a child singing sensation overseas in the '80s, she has released two American albums as an adult. Both sets - 2001's Everybody Got Their Something and 2005's can'tneverdidnothin' - blazed with flavorful hybrids of funk, pop and rock.

D.A. Weibring tried his hardest not to get too emotional yesterday. For the most part, he was successful. He tried not to cry after his final putt dropped. Instead, he bit his lip, blinked like a man caught looking directly into the sun and then shuffled across the green in the direction of his wife, Kristy. But by the time he threw his arms around her, the emotion of it all was a bit too much. There were tears, however brief. This was no time to be stoic. It was time to celebrate all of life's blessings, and time to celebrate the biggest victory of his life.

The sun was setting early yesterday evening at the Baltimore Country Club, and in the last of the dying light, with shadows closing in, Fred Funk looked around the putting green. He was all alone. The Takoma Park native, 52, dressed in a bright green shirt and wearing his trademark visor, did not seem to mind the solitude. He put his head down again and continued his silent routine of rolling in three-foot putts, over and over. Just a few feet to his right, men in tailored sport coats smoked fine cigars and talked about the state of the economy with their wives, but Funk remained oblivious.

Let's not mince words: Des Smyth does not have a pretty golf swing. He picks the club straight up, gets it completely off plane, pauses, then goes after the ball like a hockey player looking to rip a slap shot top shelf. It is - when you compare it to the fluid tempo and graceful turn that many players have on the Champions Tour - downright ugly. But don't take someone else's word for it. Just ask Smyth. "It looks far worse than it feels," Smyth joked yesterday, chuckling in his native Irish brogue.

New Orleans rock 'n' funk Bonerama, the New Orleans brass band that plays rock 'n' roll with a little funk, performs at Rams Head Tavern, 33 West St., Annapolis. Tickets are $18.50 for the 8 p.m. show. Call 410-244-1131 or go to ramsheadlive.com.

Derrill Maynard is still angry. It's been two months since his friend became the fourth homicide victim this year in Annapolis. Two months since Kwame Travon Johnson, a 17-year-old junior at Annapolis High School, was shot and bled to death on a sidewalk in the troubled public housing community where he lived. Two months since they'd hung out, watching Lil Wayne rap videos on a portable DVD player and teasing neighborhood girls. He's still angry because Kwame was the second friend he has lost to street violence.

They all missed being in a band. But the guys of Was (Not Was) didn't expect such a long time to pass before they recorded again. The art-funk group's new album, Boo!, comes 16 years after its last effort, 1992's Hello, Dad ... I'm in Jail. And what took so long? "In two words: Bonnie Raitt," says David Was (real last name: Weiss), multi-instrumentalist and the band's chief songwriter. His longtime friend and the group's producer, Don Was (real last name: Fagenson), became an in-demand producer after overseeing the pop-rock star's 1989 Grammy winner, Nick of Time.

I was completely in the dark about Amp Fiddler. Two years ago, I read about his latest album, the excellent Afro Strut, on a blog whose name I don't remember. But I immediately dug the inviting album snippets posted on the site, and I made a mental note: Next time you're out, support the brother and buy his CD. I certainly don't regret spending the $20 on the indie soul album. And I'm no longer shocked that such fine music flies way under the mainstream radar these days. It's a shame: Afro Strut, released in 2006, was one of the best R&B records that not nearly enough people heard that year.