Potomac

POTOMAC -- He stood on the practice tee Tuesday afternoon at the Tournament Players Club at Avenel, hitting balls and seeking answers that seemed to come so easily during a nine-month stretch that ended early last year. Justin Leonard won three times and became one of the biggest stars on the PGA Tour.Leonard is as perplexed as anyone in trying to figure out what has happened since.His bank statements don't reflect as big a difference as the look on his face. The confidence Leonard exuded after winning his first major championship two years ago at the British Open is not as apparent.

POTOMAC -- Most golfers would have pleasant recollections of places where they've won tournaments. For Stuart Appleby, returning recently to the Tournament Players Club at Avenel evoked memories both happy and sad of his victory at last year's Kemper Open.When he looked out into the brightness of a cool spring morning and onto the newly reseeded fairway of the par-4 18th hole, he thought about his dramatic 3-iron approach shot into the gloaming -- not to mention the wind and rain -- that helped produce a par and preserve his one-shot lead.

WHILE researching the Internet for the latest on "nutrients," like nitrogen and phosphorus, that are the principal pollutants of the Potomac River, I accidentally pulled up a piece on "nutrition" -- obesity and dieting among Americans.It made me recall the time I did a huge computer search on marine mammals, only to net everything I never wanted to know about the Miami Dolphins football team.But with my nutrient-nutrition glitch, something clicked.People in this country are worldbeaters, it turns out, in gaining weight and in losing it. We are both obese and dieters at unprecedented levels.

ATLANTA -- Leland Beckel, from Bethesda, rallied from 5-down at the turn to turn back Pat Cornett of Mill Valley, Calif., 1-up, and advance to the final of the 13th U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur championship at the Cherokee Country Club yesterday.Beckel, a Columbia Country Club member who had put out Melanie Curtin of West Roxbury, Mass., 4 and 3, in the morning, then staged her comeback by playing the back nine in 2-under-par against Cornett, the finalist in the first championship in 1987, and a former Curtis Cup member.

A GOP leader charged yesterday that a bill offering state grants for after-school programs was an attempt to set up a political "slush fund" for Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.Del. Robert L. Flanagan, the House Republican whip from Howard County, said the legislation would give the power to award the grants to a five-member executive committee controlled by Gov. Parris N. Glendening and his appointees. The amendments provide that the governor could designate the lieutenant governor to serve in his place.

POTOMAC -- Rich Beem came to the Tournament Players Club at Avenel last week a virtual unknown, having made less than $25,000 in earnings as a PGA Tour rookie and not a single penny of it in the last five weeks. But he left last night a sudden celebrity, having won the $2.5 million Kemper Open by coming out of where he has long been -- nowhere.With a hot start that included birdies on three of the first five holes in yesterday's final round, Beem built enough of a lead -- four shots -- to survive a couple of back-nine bogeys and win by a shot over two-time champion Bill Glasson and Bradley Hughes of Australia.

POTOMAC -- There's the former U.S. Open champion who suddenly lost his game three years ago and only recently began to find it. Then there's the guy who has made his millions on the Japanese tour and made his name on a worldwide stage by nearly winning last year's British Open.Everyone knows who Corey Pavin is, and most golf fans are familiar enough with Brian Watts since he narrowly missed holing out a bunker shot at Royal Birkdale last summer but still managed to force a playoff with Mark O'Meara.

POTOMAC -- OK, let's cut to the chase: Yes, Lynda Carter spent a lot of years living down Wonder Woman. But that's all in the past; right now, she's pretty happy with herself, her career and her legacy, and that includes a three-year stint as television's most bodacious post-feminist superhero."

POTOMAC -- He can barely hit a ball out of the rough, often having to settle for a chip into the fairway before going for the green. Bunkers are not much better for Bill Glasson. That he is still playing on the PGA Tour after 15 years and nearly as many surgeries is something of a miracle.It figures that Glasson is the only player to have won the Kemper Open both at Congressional Country Club -- in 1985, beating Larry Mize with a 40-foot putt on the final hole -- and here at the Tournament Players Club at Avenel in 1992.

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."

WASHINGTON - -The Coast Guard promised a full investigation Friday after a training exercise on the Potomac River grounded flights at Reagan National Airport amid media-fueled fears of another Sept. 11 incident. False TV reports about machine gun-equipped Coast Guard vessels firing on a suspicious craft in a security zone not far from a 9/11 commemoration at the Pentagon prompted sharp criticism of the government for staging the drill at such a sensitive moment. In turn, the White House pushed back against cable TV networks for erroneous "breaking news" reports.

Investigators don't know what caused the dime-size hole on the pipeline leading from the coal-fired generator at the NewPage Corp. paper mill in Luke last Sunday, but the impact of that small opening for its 12 undiscovered hours was unmistakable: a discharge of roughly 4,000 gallons of dark, gritty coal ash, some of it spilling into the North Branch of the Potomac River. The Western Maryland spill was minor compared with the 1.1 billion-gallon release of coal ash at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston, Tenn.

The Environmental Protection Agency filed a federal lawsuit demanding that the owner of an old naval ship decaying in Baltimore's harbor clean up the vessel within the country, after a recent report showed it contains dangerously high levels of toxins. The ship, a decorated World War II craft, has been rotting in the Patapsco River for 18 years, neglected and abandoned until it was finally sold at court-ordered auction in October to Potomac Navigation Inc. The Delaware-registered company planned to tow the M/V Sanctuary to Greece in December, but it has been delayed by costly legal wrangling with the U.S. government.

This week, in 1888, Baltimore caught the edges of what The Sun described as "one of the severest blizzards ever known on the Middle Atlantic coast." Cold air swept down from Lake Superior, while a powerful storm swirled north from Cape Hatteras. Ice, winds to 48 mph, and up to a foot of snow cut off telegraph and telephone communications with harder-hit cities to the north. Northwest winds dropped the Chesapeake tides 5 feet, emptying parts of the tidal Potomac and Baltimore harbor.

The Sanctuary, a retired World War II-era vessel languishing in Baltimore waters for years, contains high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, according to a report obtained yesterday by The Sun. The survey, performed in July by a company that once considered buying the former Navy hospital ship, confirms the suspicions of environmentalists. It contradicts assertions by the new owner, Potomac Navigation Inc., that the vessel contains few PCBs. The Delaware-registered company plans to take the vessel to Greece in the next few weeks, but concerns raised by a Seattle environmental group, the Basel Action Network, could delay the process.

The top-ranked Archbishop Spalding girls soccer team took its highly gifted skills and nine straight shutout wins into yesterday's game at No. 6 St. Vincent Pallotti. The Panthers countered with a tireless work rate and an unbeaten record of their own. After 100 minutes of soccer, the teams' respective strengths - Spalding's creativity against Pallotti's desire to get to the ball first - countered each other in a 1-1 double-overtime tie in a rematch of last year's Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference championship.

On Friday, December 22, 2006, BARBARA DRURY WISE MACSHERRY; beloved wife of the late Bernard Shriver Macsherry; devoted mother of Bernard Shriver Macsherry, Jr. of Rehoboth Beach, DE; Richard Meredith Macsherry (Christina Spilsbury) of Tamarindo, Costa Rica; and Helen Drury Macsherry, of Potomac, MD; and sister of Suzanne Wise Ewing of Roswell, GA, Bernard Montgomery Wise, Jr. of Washington, D.C., and the late Elizabeth Jane Wise Furey. She is also survived by 39 nieces and nephews. Family and friends may call on Tuesday, December 26 from 4 to 7 p.m. at 10316 Crown Point Court in Potomac, MD. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Potomac, MD on Wednesday, December 27 at 10 a.m. Interment St. Gabriel's Cemetery, Potomac, MD. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Little Sisters of the Poor, 4200 Harwood Road, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20017-1554.

Christian Pavik found football here to be "five times more intense" than in his native Reno, Nev., from which he transferred to Hereford when his father moved his sales business to Baltimore. "And the guys are like brothers to me and really welcomed me in," Pavik said. "They've been awesome, and I want to thank them for that." In last night's 21-0 victory over visiting Eastern Tech, the senior receiver-defensive back again demonstrated his gratitude. Pavik caught a 33-yard scoring pass from Nick Aiello, made his sixth interception of the season and recovered his third fumble in the ninth straight win by the Bulls (9-1, 9-0)

In the foyer of a handsomely appointed home in Potomac, Kristen Cox receives a warning from her host. "Now hold on, Kris, I have steps down," the host says. "I don't want you to fall." Cox - who is legally blind and who that morning had run the 3.1-mile Race for the Cure in Baltimore without incident - bristles just slightly. "Oh, I'm fine," she says. "I've got my cane." In her campaign for lieutenant governor, Cox prefers to talk about complex public policy issues and her record as secretary of the state's first Department of Disabilities.

TUESDAY HISTORICAL-GARDEN LECTURE Learn about the development of woodland gardens in Ireland and Canada at the talk "In Veronica's Garden," 7 p.m. Tuesday at Longwood Gardens, U.S. 1, Kennett Square, Pa. Author Margaret Cadwaladr (In Veronica's Garden, Madrona Books, 2002) will discuss the life of Veronica FitzGerald Milner and her creation of these elaborate gardens. There will also be a dessert-buffet reception and a book-signing by the author. $29. 610-388-1000, ext. 559 or visit longwoodlearning.