Champions Tour's Green loses leg

Champions Tour golfer Ken Green's lower right leg was amputated yesterday following a recreational vehicle accident last week in which his brother and girlfriend died.

He was under sedation and in good condition after the 3-hour operation at University of Mississippi Medical Center, Green's agent and close friend Kevin Richardson said.

"He's safe and he tolerated it well," Richardson told the Associated Press. He added that Green hopes to play golf again.

Richardson said Green, 50, will spend at least a week in the hospital before returning home to Indiantown, Fla. He will go through rehabilitation and be fitted for a prosthetic limb. Green will need surgery on a suborbital bone in his face. He also has about a 6-inch cut on the left side of his head.

His brother, William Green, and girlfriend Jean Marie Hodgin died in the June 8 accident in east Mississippi.

Friends and family are concerned. Green has openly discussed his mental problems that plagued his final years on the PGA Tour. He returned to competitive golf last year when he joined the Champions Tour for players over 50.

Green has spoken of hearing voices that made it nearly impossible to concentrate, pushing him to the verge of suicide.

The three were traveling east in an RV on Interstate 20 from Austin, Texas, where Green played in a tournament, when a tire blew out near Hickory, Miss. The RV went off the road, down an embankment and into an oak tree, destroying the front of the vehicle.

* Japan's Shingo Katayama has withdrawn from the U.S. Open because of a back injury. The tournament begins Thursday at Bethpage Plack in Farmingdale, N.Y. *