Sudden Death

Jeff LeFevre of Linwood Country Club in Northfield, N.J., made par 4 on the first playoff hole to win the $1,250 top prize in the $9,000 William Hyndman 3d Open golf tournament of the Philadelphia PGA yesterday at Huntingdon Valley Country Club. The tournament also was a qualifier for the Philadelphia Open Championship. Thirty-six players with scores to and including 76 will compete at Kennett Square on July 13. Butch Sweigart of Mac's Golf Center won the Senior honors with a 74, 1 over Pete Trenham of St. Davids.

James Bryan of Latrobe Country Club made a par on the first hole of sudden death and won the Pennsylvania Golf Association's Mid-Amateur Championship yesterday at the Country Club of Hershey. Bryan defeated Williamsport's Warren Choate in the final by rallying with birdies on the 15th and 16th holes before Choate knotted the match with a birdie on the 17th and forced the playoff. Choate, who had beaten Phoenixville's Mike Domenick, 1 up, in the morning semifinals, took an unplayable lie on the first playoff hole, allowing Bryan to take the title for men age 30 and over.

Ken Macdonald, a 20-year-old amateur from Upper Montclair, won a sudden-death playoff and captured the 78th annual New Jersey Open yesterday with a 72-hole total of 7-under par 281 at Spring Lake Golf Club. Deerwood Country Club head pro Greg Farrow finished 2 strokes behind in fourth place with a final-round 68 and a 283 total, followed by Little Mill's Ken Peyre-Ferry at 284 and Indian Spring's Vince Ramagli at 285. Macdonald and Manasquan River pro Brian Gaffney tied for first on the 6,364-yard course, forcing the playoff that ended when Macdonald parred the first hole and Gaffney 3-putted from 12 feet, making Macdonald the first amateur winner since 1970.

Dan Pohl defeated hard-luck Payne Stewart with a birdie on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff yesterday to capture the Colonial National Invitation in Fort Worth, Texas. The playoff began and ended at the watery par-3 16th, where Stewart hit his tee shot over the green into the long rough. Pohl put his shot within 6 feet. After Stewart had made an excellent chip, Pohl rolled in his birdie putt for the first tournament victory of his nine-year career. "It was a long time coming," said Pohl, one of the longest hitting players on the tour.

Only one goal is needed in sudden death, but Central Dauphin's Tony Watkins scored two in the Rams' 1-0 upset of Neshaminy last night in a first-round PIAA state Class AAA boys' soccer playoff game at Hatboro-Horsham High. Watkins thought he had the game-winner just 2 minutes, 27 seconds into the first overtime session but was ruled offside on his header that beat Neshaminy goalkeeper Adam Tully. So the 6-foot-2 junior did it again on almost a duplicate play just 1:35 later, and this one counted.

Huntingdon Valley's Bonnie George needed two holes of sudden death to get past Philadelphia Cricket Club's Jan Albert and repeat as the Super-Senior winner in the Pennsylvania State Women's Golf Association's 15th annual championship Thursday at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club. In the semifinals of the 74th State Amateur championship, Aronimink's Catherine Elliott and Hartefeld National's Aurora Kan advanced to Friday's final with semifinal victories. Kan won on the first hole of sudden death, and Elliott eliminated Whitemarsh Valley's Emily Gimpel, 3 and 2. Top-seeded Alexandra Frazier of Gulph Mills will meet Sunnybrook's Lisa McGill for the Senior Division trophy on Friday morning.

Nearly a week has passed since the Mount Laurel Shockwaves brought the girls' under-14 U.S. Youth Soccer Region 1 championship to South Jersey. But for assistant coach Jay Ingalls, the urge to pinch himself still hasn't ceased. "We're floating a little bit right now," Ingalls said. Who can blame them? The Shockwaves overcame injury, lack of depth, and formidable opposition to capture the Region 1 title in dramatic fashion Sunday in Erie, Pa. After battling defending Region 1 champion Bethesda (Md.)

TELEVISION Tomorrow and Friday: ESPN, 4 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday: ESPN, 7 a.m-2:30 p.m. Sunday: 6 a.m.-1:30 p.m. If there's a playoff, it will be a four-hole aggregate score beginning immediately afterward. If it's still tied after that, the format reverts to sudden death. ON THE WEB Follow philly.com through the British Open with a live scoreboard at www.philly.com/golf MIKE KERN'S QUIZ Check out Mike Kern's British Open quiz on our website at www.philly.com/golfquiz

New Jersey Gov. Christopher J. Christie will deliver his annual "State of the State" address this afternoon. He had been scheduled to deliver the speech last week, but the event was delayed by the sudden death at the Statehouse of Alex DeCroce, the Assembly's Republican leader and a close friend of the governor. Christie is slated to give his report to both houses of the Legislature in the Assembly Chambers at 3 p.m. NJTV ( http://www.njtvonline.org/ ) will broadcast the speech live.

NEXT TIME regulation ends in a Stanley Cup playoff game, don't change the channel or leave your seat to get a cold refreshment. You might miss the game-winner. In the playoffs, sudden-death overtime - especially in a series-clinching scenario - is the ultimate television reality show. It's just been a fleeting moment. Through 53 games, prior to Monday night's action, 18 games (34 percent) had gone to overtime. On average, overtime in those 53 games has lasted just 8:24. Overtime in eight of those 18 games (44 percent)

IN THE END, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua's death can't invoke nefarious comparisons to that not-quite-a-classic movie "The Godfather Part III. " Nor the real-life death of Pope John Paul I, who died 33 days into his papacy in 1978. In the 1990 flick, a newly elected pope is the victim of foul play - something Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman has wanted to rule out in the Bevilacqua case since the 88-year-old cardinal died Jan. 31 in Wynnewood. The late cardinal died of natural causes - heart disease, with prostate cancer as a contributing factor, coroner Walter I. Hofman announced at a news conference yesterday.

New Jersey Gov. Christopher J. Christie will deliver his annual "State of the State" address this afternoon. He had been scheduled to deliver the speech last week, but the event was delayed by the sudden death at the Statehouse of Alex DeCroce, the Assembly's Republican leader and a close friend of the governor. Christie is slated to give his report to both houses of the Legislature in the Assembly Chambers at 3 p.m. NJTV ( http://www.njtvonline.org/ ) will broadcast the speech live.

THE MOTHER of former NHL player Wade Belak said yesterday that her son had suffered from depression before his death. Belak, 35, an enforcer who had played with five NHL teams before retiring in March, was found dead Wednesday in Toronto. According to several reports, he hanged himself. "I think he was taking control of that [depression]," Lorraine Belak said in a phone interview from Nashville. "He didn't talk about it all the time or a lot. " Private services will be tomorrow in Nashville.

TELEVISION Today and tomorow: ESPN, 4 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday: ESPN, 7 a.m-2:30 p.m. Sunday: 6 a.m.-1:30 p.m. If there's a playoff, it will be a four-hole aggregate score beginning immediately afterward. If it's still tied after that, the format reverts to sudden death. ON THE WEB Follow philly.com through the British Open with a live scoreboard at www.philly.com/golf MIKE KERN'S QUIZ Check out Mike Kern's British Open quiz on our website at www.philly.com/golfquiz

As if they didn't have enough to worry about, Eagles coach Andy Reid and the rest of his playoff-bound brethren now will be faced with the prospect of navigating the NFL's super-special playoff overtime rules. It's not necessarily sudden death anymore. In the offseason, the NFL's Competition Committee decided that it didn't like the idea of overtime games ending on the first possession with a field goal. But instead of changing the rule for the regular season and giving coaches a chance to fool around with different strategies, the change was made for the playoffs only.

Huntingdon Valley's Bonnie George needed two holes of sudden death to get past Philadelphia Cricket Club's Jan Albert and repeat as the Super-Senior winner in the Pennsylvania State Women's Golf Association's 15th annual championship Thursday at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club. In the semifinals of the 74th State Amateur championship, Aronimink's Catherine Elliott and Hartefeld National's Aurora Kan advanced to Friday's final with semifinal victories. Kan won on the first hole of sudden death, and Elliott eliminated Whitemarsh Valley's Emily Gimpel, 3 and 2. Top-seeded Alexandra Frazier of Gulph Mills will meet Sunnybrook's Lisa McGill for the Senior Division trophy on Friday morning.

  The 36 scheduled holes of the Philadelphia Open weren't enough for Michael Brown and Greg Farrow Wednesday. The two players extended their day with a four-hole aggregate-score playoff - then played one hole of sudden death in near-darkness at tree-shrouded Philmont Country Club. With a half-moon looming in the darkening sky over the Huntingdon Valley layout, Brown watched as Farrow three-putted for bogey on Philmont's first hole, then calmly tapped in from 18 inches for par to take the championship of the 106th Open.

Ryan Smith always envisioned himself one day becoming a head football coach somewhere. The 31-year-old, 1997 Sun Valley graduate just didn't think it would come this fast-or under the toughest of circumstances. Smith is the new head coach of Chichester football, taking over for Bobby Shull, who never coached a game after dying suddenly and unexpectedly on June 4 at the age of 37 from leukemia. Shull's death struck the Chichester community and forced Smith, a gym teacher at Chichester, into action.