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Sports in brief

Woods' wild cards have host looking prophetic

Their world rankings suggest Mark O'Meara and Fred Couples don't belong in the elite field at the Williams World Challenge. The 6-under 66 they posted Thursday proved otherwise.

The pair Tiger Woods invited to his $4.1-million golf tournament turned in a stellar performance to share a two-stroke lead after the first round at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

O'Meara, who hasn't won in three years and has plunged to No. 153 in the world, reached all the par 5s in two shots and got to 7 under until a bogey on No. 17 dropped him into a tie for the lead.

Couples, who also hasn't won since 1998 and is ranked No. 100, had 31 on the back nine and closed his 66 by holing a 30-foot par putt up the ridge on the 18th hole.

Two men in their 40s. The only two in the 18-man field ranked lower than 32nd. Both with 66.

"We played a scramble and no one watched us," was Couples' explanation. Actually, they did it the old-fashioned way: hit a lot of good shots and made some putts.

In the process, they showed up the tournament host.

Woods had few complaints other than hitting a wedge over the green on the par-5 16th that led to bogey. He managed six birdies in a round of 68 that left him tied with Vijay Singh and Scott Verplank.

Woods hit an approach into No. 7 that stopped a foot from the hole. He also had two bogeys when he flew the green.

He shaved his goatee, but he was far from all business at his tournament. On the seventh, he tossed a divot at caddie Steve Williams when he wasn't looking. Williams pretended to chase him with a putter, then threw it to him from 20 yards.

The tournament was for the top 16 players available in the world ranking, plus two "Tiger picks."

VOLLEYBALL: Attorneys for the University of South Florida's Board of Regents and former USF coach Perri Hankins have requested that Hankins' amended lawsuit against the school be assigned to a magistrate. The lawsuit, which claims USF fired Hankins in retaliation for her blowing the whistle on the "disparate treatment of female athletes and those employed in women's sports at USF," was filed Sept. 25 and is in U.S. District Court. If it is reassigned from District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich to Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo, the case likely will be acted upon sooner.The parties also have agreed to meet with a mediator, Cary Singletary, on Jan. 4. The lawsuit lists a lengthy chronology of complaints Hankins made from late 1996 until November 1998 about funding and support of her program, potential violations of Title IX, to associate athletic director Barbara Sparks-McGlinchy. Despite her success, including a 189-72 record in eight seasons with five NCAA Tournament appearances, Hankins was fired in December 1998.

COLLEGES: Duke has met the requirements of a U.S. Office of Civil Rights ruling that it give more financial support to female scholarship athletes. A complaint filed in 1997 by the National Women's Law Center said Duke and 24 other universities failed to comply with a Title IX mandate requiring that scholarship money be divided between male and female athletes. Since then, Duke has increased by 13 percent the money it sets aside for female athletes. ... Tampa's Roy Fink and Ginger Lynn were named All-Americans by the National Collegiate Soccer Coaches Association of America. Fink, a sophomore, was named to the men's first team and Lynn, a junior, to the women's third team.

TENNIS: Ashley Harkleroad of Wesley Chapel and Alex Bogomolov of Miami advanced to the singles quarterfinals of the boys and girls 18s at the 55th Annual Orange Bowl International Junior Championships on Key Biscayne.

SOCCER: The Chicago White Sox rejected the Chicago Fire's request to play at Comiskey Park next season, forcing the Major League Soccer club to look outside the city, general manager Peter Wilt said.

BASKETBALL: Gregg Popovich of the NBA's Spurs, Mike Montgomery of Stanford and Kelvin Sampson of Oklahoma were picked as assistant coaches for USA Basketball's 2002 team at the FIBA World Championships. The tournament is set for Aug. 29 through Sept. 8 at Indianapolis.

OLYMPICS: Resisting suggestions he fill the remaining eight spots on the U.S. men's hockey team by Wednesday for the convenience of an ESPN telecast, coach Herb Brooks said he plans to continue evaluating players until the Dec. 22 deadline. ... Kari Erickson's defending national curling champions remained unbeaten in six matches and kept a two-game lead on the women's field at the U.S. trials in Ogden, Utah.

WINTER SPORTS: George Hackl of Germany won the World Cup singles luge race in Igls, Austria, with a combined time of 1 minute, 40.067 seconds for two runs. Hackl's 26th World Cup career victory put him in first place in the overall standings through four of this season's seven races. ... Pavel Rostovtsev of Russia won the individual 20-kilometer biathlon World Cup event in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

SWIMMING: Germany twice broke the world record in the men's 200-meter medley relay to win the gold medal at the European Short Course Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.

BOWLING: Team USA members Shannon Pluhowsky and Dino Castillo led the match-play qualifiers Wednesday night in the USA Amateur Championships in Reno, Nev.

CYCLING: Australian Graham Sharman will be banned from the sport for two years after testing positive for a muscle-boosting anabolic drug. Cycling Australia said the result was discovered in an out-of-competition sample taken by the Australian Sports Drug Agency on June 15.

RODEO: Bryan Fields tied the National Finals steer wrestling record Wednesday night with a three-second run in Las Vegas. Fields matched the record set by Steve Duhon in 1986 en route to the first of his three world titles.

HORSES: Sweet Stepper beat Western Stranger by 11/2 lengths, running a mile on the turf course in 1:36, in the $42,000 feature race at Hollywood Park. ... Mount Intrepid ran 1 mile, 70 yards in 1:42 and beat Classic Endeavor by 11/2 lengths in Aqueduct's feature, a $44,000 allowance for 3 and older.

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