The Los Angeles Times du lieu suivant : Los Angeles, California • Page 110

LOS ANGELES TIMES GOLF THOMAS BONK D10 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2001 NEWSWIRE Tallying Up the Scorecard Agassi Misses Golden Chance From Wire Reports 4 Jf Annika Sorenstam and Tiger Woods were teammates in a golf This Week on Tour PGA TOUR National Car Rental Classic Site: Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Schedule: Today-Sunday. Courses: Walt Disney World Resort, Magnolia Course (7,243 yards, par 72), Palm Course (7,193 yards, par 72). Purse: $3.4 million. Winner's share: $612,000.

Television: ESPN (today-Friday, noon-3 p.m.; Saturday, p.m.) and ABC (Sunday, noon-3 p.m.). Last year. Duffy Waldorf shot a career-best 10-under-par 62 in the final round to beat Steve Flesch by a stroke and Tiger Woods by three. Last week: Bob Estes won the Invensys Classic at Las Vegas, closing with a nine-under 63 to beat Tom Lehman and Rory Sab-batini by a stroke. Estes finished the 90-hole event at 30 under.

Notes: Woods is making his first start since tying for 23rd in the Canadian Open on Sept. 9. He won the 1996 and 1999 tournaments. With three full-field events left, Paul Goydos holds the 125th and final fully exempt 2002 spot on the money list with $375,557. Pete Jordan is 126th, $4,429 behind, followed by Ian Leggatt and Tom Byrum The final two rounds will be played on the Magnolia Course.

The Buick Challenge is next week in Pine Mountain, Ga. On the Net: http:wvm.pga-tour.com SENIOR PGA TOUR SBC Championship Site: San Antonio. Schedule: Friday-Sunday. Course: The Dominion Country Club (6,835 yards, par 72). Purse: $1.4 million.

Winner's share: $210,000. Television: PAX (Friday, 11 a.m.-l p.m.) and CNBC (Saturday-Sunday, 24 p.m.). Last yean Doug Tewell birdied the final hole for a one-stroke victory over Larry Nelson and Walter Hall. Last week: Sammy Rachels won The Transamerica, closing with a 30-foot eagle putt to beat Tewell and Raymond Floyd by a stroke. Notes: The tournament is the final full-field event of the year, with the top 31 on the money list securing 2002 exemptions and spots next week in the Senior Tour Championship in Oklahoma City.

John Schroeder is 31st at $648,364, followed by Graham Marsh ($618,172) and Steve Ve-riato Allen Doyle leads the money list with $2,491,742, followed by Bruce Fleisher ($2,313,177) and Hale Irwin Doyle also tops the Charles Schwab Cup race for a $l-million annuity. On the Net: They're in the home stretch of the 2001 professional golf season, which makes this a good time to take a look back, try to figure out what happened and then proudly hand out some well-deserved awards. It would probably be too much of a stretch to say the honors being bestowed on the freshest flowers of pro golf are highly coveted, because they certainly are not. This is because these players have rich and full lives, there is no cash award involved and few (if any) of them would walk across the street if there wasn't a fee involved. -i But that's beside the point.

It's a time to celebrate the best and acknowledge the worst and skip everything else in between. Feel free to play along at home. Male player of the year: Tiger Woods. He won the Masters and held the championships of all four major titles at the same time. He also won five times, more than anyone else, won more money than anyone else and shot lower.

Even more important, he remains the standard by which all other players are judged. Female player of the year: Annika Sorenstam. She shot the first 59 in LPGA competition, won four of her first six times out, won the year's first major and has six victories in all. Best tournament: The Masters. It might not have been the most closely contested, but when you have Woods making history on Bobby Jones' home turf, you can't ignore it.

Worst tournament: Battle III at Bighorn on ABC. For something that was under the lights, there was zero electricity. Best shot of the year: David Toms' hole in one in the third round of the PGA Championship. Worst shot of the year: Any putt in the last two groups on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open at Southern Hills.

Comeback player of the year: John Daly. He's had four top-10 finishes, earned a career-high $828,914, and has a first and a second on the European Tour, both in Germany, in the past two months. Worst decision of the year: Florida 12-year-old changes his first name to Lion because he hopes he can beat Tiger in the future. Best advice of the year: To Florida 12-year-old, stick to video games, like everybody else your age, kid. Honesty award (self-appraisal division): Senior PGA Tour rookie Roger Maltbie: "Look at me, I'm a mess." Hat of the year: Shingo Katayama, wearing that cowboy number, at the PGA Championship.

Silly criticism of the year: Tom Kite chastising reporters at the portion of his legal fees: "Hey, party at my house!" Best packing job: Jesper Parnevik brought 20 pairs of pants to the Memorial. Best Sam Snead quote of the year: Of Woods, Snead said, "I predict he's going to be around for awhile." Best TV review of the year: Karrie Webb said she didn't think the "Survivor" television series was actually taped in the outback of her native Australia. Said Webb: "Even in the bush, no one just camps on the side of the river unless you want to wake up next to a crocodile." Duh! award of the year: Researchers at the Mayo Clinic's sports psychology and medicine center said the yips are most likely the result of anxiety. Best overall quote of the year: Lee Wesrwood, who missed the cut four times in a stretch of six tournaments and then was asked if he had any gremlins: "I don't have any gremlins. I have two dogs and a cat." New Listing News item: Parnevik has put his house in Admiral's Cove, on the market for $2.15 million.

Reaction: Closets come complete with dozens of Popsicle-purple, flamingo-pink and Elvis-black pants. Tiger Update According to an ESPN poll asking which athlete respondents would choose to endorse any The Top 5 Tiger Woods' top five money-making PGA Tour events in 2001: 1 The Players Championship, $1,080,000, 15-under-par victory. 2 Masters, $1,008,999, 16-under victory. 3 World Golf ChampionshipNEC invitational, $1 million, 12-under victory. 4 Memorial, $738,999, 17-under victory.

5 Bay Hill Invitational, $630,000, 15-under victory. Note: Woods is playing the National Car Rental Classic at Walt Disney World Resort this week-his first event since the Bell Canadian Open Sept 9-and he has won a total of five times, made $5,517 million in 17 tournaments, had nine top-10 finishes and is a combined 156 under par. Thomas Bonk U.S. Open for writing too much about Tiger. Actually, you can't write enough about Tiger.

Former caddie of the year: Myles Byrne. And, yes, he wins by Myles. Wedding of the year: Daly tries No. 4. Supreme Court ruling of the year: Casey Martin wins his cart case.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Best reaction of the year: Martin, after being told the PGA Tour is obligated to defray a Andre Agassi lost a chance to reclaim the No. 1 ranking in men's tennis when he was upset by Hicham Arazi, 7-6 (4), 7-5, Wednesday in the second round of the Masters Series at Stuttgart, Germany. Pete Sampras, trying to win his first title in 15 months, had an easier time, beating Austria's Stefan Koubek, 6-3, 7-6 (5). It was Sampras' first match since losing to Iieyton Hewitt in the U.S.

Open final five weeks ago. His last title came at Wimbledon in 2000, a stretch of 18 tournaments. Agassi, seeded second, was ousted a day after top-ranked Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil was eliminated. Agassi could have regained the No. 1 ranking by winning the event.

Agassi was ranked No. 2 in the Champions Race. Hewitt, who did not play Wednesday, can advance from No. 3 to No. 1 by winning the tournament.

In other matches, fifth-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov defeated Andrei Pavel, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3, and No. 14 Andy Roddick survived 23 aces from French qualifier Julien Boutter to win, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5). Sampras is tied with Sebastien Grosjean at No. 7 in the Champions Race, which determines the year-end No. 1 ranking.

Jennifer Capriati made an unconvincing start to her reign as the No. 1 women's player, needing three sets to beat wild card Nadia Petrova of Russia in the second round of the Swisscom Challenge at Zurich, Switzerland. Capriati showed little intensity against Petrova, winning, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. Lindsay Davenport defeated South Africa's Amanda Coetzer, 6-3, 6-4, improving her record at Zurich to 12-1. The loss came against Martina Hingis in last year's final.

Eighth-seeded Silvia Farina Elia of Italy defeated Lisa Raymond, 6-2, 6-4. Kimberly Po of Rolling Hills asked to be listed as Swiss at the Swisscom Challenge because she feels vulnerable after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Po, who is playing doubles with France's Nathalie Tauziat, is married to a Swiss. She said the change is temporary.

Meilen Tu became the first seeded player to lose in the second round of the Eurotel Slovak Indoor tournament at Bratislava, Slovakia. Tu was eliminated by Slovakia's Ludmila Cervanova, 6-4, 6-3. In first-round matches, third-seeded Franceses Schiavone of Italy beat Hungary's Petra Man-dula, 7-5, 6-2; fourth-seeded Rita Grande of Italy defeated Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain, 6-1, 6-0, and seventh-seeded Nathalie Dechy of France ousted Adriana Gersi of the Czech Republic, 6-2, 6-3. Miscellany Tiger Woods usually plays his practice rounds at dawn and sometimes finishes before the gallery can find him. That wasn't hard to do Wednesday, because there was no gallery The National Car Rental Classic at Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, closed practice rounds to spectators this week as part of new security measures.

Eric Lucas will make the first defense of his World Boxing Council super-middleweight title against Dingaan Thobela of South Africa on Nov. 30 at Montreal. Six athletes tested positive among 880 doping control tests performed by tne U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in the third quarter of the year. Three athletes tested positive for prohibited stimulants and three for steroids, agency officials said without identifying the athletes.

Two others refused testing and were referred to the adjudication process. Passings Art Skipper, a former NCAA champion javelin thrower at Oregon, was killed Tuesday in a small plane crash southeast of Portland, Ore. He was 31. Skipper was flying a single-engine Piper Cub with his cousin as a passenger when the plane went down in a field amid heavy fog just before 4 p.m. Ted Skipper, 37, was in serious condition at a Portland hospital.

Micheline Ostermeyer, who won gold medals in the shot put and discus throw at the 1948 Olympics, has died. She was 78. (See story, B15). OLYMPICS HELENE ELLIOTT Yim Prepared to Compete in Complex World Reutere tournament of dubious distinction. 13.2 and Michael Jordan was first with 21.5.

Kobe Bryant was a distant third with 3.1 Duck Soup News item: University of Oregon die-hard Peter Jacobsen and his Jacobsen-Hardy design firm build a golf course for Baylor University. Reaction: Next, Jacobsen will design square golf balls for Oregon State golfers just in time for the match against Oregon. Nick Knack News item: Nick Faldo, who hasn't played a PGA Tour event in seven weeks, needs two more to reach the required level of 15 to keep his card, but wonders if he really wants to. Reaction: Yes, you want to, since you've made about $3.1 million on the tour since you joined in 1995 and you have two ex-wives. Birdies, Bogeys, Pars A full-size bronze statue of Payne Stewart will be unveiled Nov.

6 at Pinehurst, where Stewart won the 1999 U.S. Open. Stewart died in a plane crash four months later. For the first time in its 101-year history, the U.S. Open will be played off two tees in 2002, taking advantage of two more hours of daylight.

The U.S. Women's Open moved to a two-tee start in 2000 and the U.S. Senior Open used it for the first time this year. The USGA and NBC extended their contract through 2008. Marathon Woman Joan Benoit Samuelson, winner of the first women's Olympic marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, believes the women's world record could be cut to 2 hours 15 minutes.

Watching Naoko Takahashi of Japan break the 2:20 barrier and Catherine Ndereba of Kenya break 2:19 on consecutive weekends this month led her to think it will happen soon. "Catherine could do it if she hasn't raced a lot," said Samuelson, who set the U.S. women's record of 2:21:21 in 1985. "Catherine looked so easy out there. She didn't look like she was working until the last mile Kiplagat, of Kenya is capable as well.

I think the Japanese women are coming along very nicely. I think you'll see it from Japan or Africa in the next decade. Maybe China." Samuelson, 44, entered next month's New York City Marathon despite persistent foot problems. She said she felt compelled to run as a sign of defiance against the Sept. 11 attacks.

"This is an event that should buoy the spirits of the city, the nation and the world," she said, "and not something we should be fearful of. Ey running this event, we're coming together and uniting not only as athletes, but as an international world." Samuelson said she's capable of running faster than the 2:39:59 she ran at the 2000 U.S. Olympic marathon trials, "if I had a good day and things are working well." Here and There A five-member U.S. Olympic Committee panel will issue a recommendation to the USOC Board of Directors this week on whether U.S. Equestrian Team or USA Equestrian (formerly the American Horse Shows Assn.) should be the national governing body for U.S.

equestrian sports. Months of mudslinging and lawsuit-lobbing culminated in three days of hearings this week in product, Woods was No. 2 with Associated Press standards. "It's more for experience," she said of what she hopes to gain. "I'm going to try my best.

I'm a little nervous and really excited. I'm really looking forward to it." If she goes to Belgium, she will have only a few days to prepare for the Pacific Coast Sectional figure skating competition. Skaters advance from there to the U.S. championships, to be held Jan. 6-13 at Staples Center and the Sports Arena, and Yim would love to skate in front of her friends and family.

However, she's not prepared to give up one sport to concentrate on the other. "I like both the same," she said. 1 A I. f'- I 4 1 If1 I "A rli. i 'i v.r''.

vT77Ta I i i Mlii mn liiiTliffi i ll Tabitha Yim shouldn't have to fear anything more serious than whether her nerves will betray her on the balance beam at the World Gymnastics Championships this month in Ghent, Belgium. But in a world shaken by terrorism, life is complicated. Because of safety concerns, USA Gymnastics moved a training camp from Belgium to Houston this week, and it will decide Saturday if it's too risky to send the team to the world competition. USA Gymnastics previously pulled its rhythmic team from the rhythmic world championships in Spain. It would be a shame if young U.S.

gymnasts miss a chance at much-needed international experience as they build toward the 2003 World Championships at Anaheim and the 2004 Athens Olympics. It also would be a loss for Yim, who has already faced much adversity. Yim, a junior at Irvine's Northwood High, lost her father, Howard, to a heart defect two years ago. Despite the emotional duress of his death and the physical duress of a tough training schedule, she has earned international honors while also competing in figure skating at the novice level. She would love to make her senior world debut in Belgium, but she's accustomed to surmounting obstacles.

"I'm not really worried about the decision. I'm leaving it up to the head people of USA Gymnastics," she said. "I'm going to trust what they decide is the right thing." This has been a breakthrough year for Yim, who will be 16 on Nov. 2. Besides finishing second to Tasha Schwikert in the all-around phase of the U.S.

competition in August, she was first in the floor exercise and second on the uneven bars. At the U.S. Classic, she was second to Schwikert in the all-around, first on the beam and second in floor exercise and on the uneven bars. At the Pan American Games a few weeks ago in Cancun, Austin, Texas. McKellen a member of the U.S.

Figure Skating Hall of Fame, was permanently banned from membership in the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. The three-time U.S. men's champion failed to respond to a grievance filed early this year that alleged he violated the USFSA ethics code by "engaging in unethical and unprofessional behavior while coaching a student." The student was not identified. McKellen coached in Grapevine, Texas, until February.

The U.S. women's national hockey team improved its pre-Olympic record to 7-0 with a 16-0 rout of the ECAC All Stars Sunday at Boston. Team USA has outscored its opponents, 61-3, and will face its first real challenge Saturday against Canada at the E-Center at Salt Lake City Alexei Yagudin of Russia requested a late entry into Skate America next week in Colorado Springs, Colo. He wants experience at altitude and all the practice he can get to keep up with Evgeni Plushenko, who ended his three-year reign as world champion in March. Yagudin was encouraged by his victory at Saturday's Masters of Figure Skating, which followed a shaky third-place finish at the Goodwill Games.

Three-time Olympic speedskating champion Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann will miss the Salt Lake City Games because she's pregnant. London lost the 2005 World Track and Field Championships after government funding for a new stadium evaporated. Berlin is a potential replacement U.S. luger Tony Benshoof broke the Guinness Book of Records mark for the highest recorded luge speed when he hit 86.6 mph at the Olympic track at Park City, Utah this week. The previous record of 85.38 mph was set in 1982....

Only 113 days until the Salt Lake City Winter It has been a breakthrough year for Tabitha Yim, who won gold in the balance beam and bronze in the all-around at Pan Am Games. Mexico, Yim took home team gold as well as individual gold on the balance beam and bronze in the all-around. "Tabitha is a very hard, dedicated worker, and she has a strong head on her shoulders," said Beth Rybacki, who coaches Yim for the Charter Oaks Glider3 in Covina. "There's no doubt she can go far. She's been training very well and she did very well at the Pan Am Games." Rybacki would consider it a success if Yim qualifies for the all-around finals at the world meet.

"That would be a huge goal," she said. But Yim has set modest.