Woods Shoots a 69, Leads by 9 in NCAA

Tiger Woods shot a 69 Friday at Ooltewah, Tenn., and took a nine-stroke lead after three rounds of the NCAA golf tournament.

Arizona State continued to lead the team competition, holding a five-stroke lead over Nevada Las Vegas.

Woods, of Stanford, birdied two of the first three holes on the Honors Course and the last two to move to 205, 11 under par.

“I struggled in the middle, kind of lost my swing for a while,” Woods said. “It was going everywhere. When you’re not hitting it just right, you have to keep it in play. This course is so penal.”

The largest margin of victory in an NCAA tournament is seven strokes, by Ben Crenshaw of Texas in 1971 and Phil Mickelson of Arizona State in 1992 but Woods wasn’t in the mood to consider that.

“Anything can happen out here,” he said. “It’s not hard to make [quadruple bogeys] and triples, it’s really not. You can wind up with an eight in a heartbeat.”

Woods’ nearest competitor is Rory Sabbatini of Arizona, who shot 74 Friday and is at 214, two under.

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John Huston shot an 11-under 61, two strokes shy of the PGA Tour record, for a two-stroke lead over Ernie Els in in the Memorial tournament at Dublin, Ohio .

The 61 left him at nine-under 135 through 36 holes and gave him the lead over Els, who was one ahead of a group of six that included Tom Watson and Payne Stewart.

Defending champion Greg Norman and Jack Nicklaus, who designed the course, missed the cut. Norman, playing for the first time since his final-round collapse at the Masters, shot a 76 and was at 149, five over par and two strokes off the cut. Nicklaus followed an opening 77 with a 75 and missed by four strokes.

The tour record of 59 is shared by Al Geiberger and Chip Beck.

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Bruce Summerhays and John Bland shot five-under-par 67s and shared the first-round lead in Bruno’s Memorial Classic Senior PGA tournament at Birmingham, Ala.

Five players shot 69s--Bob Murphy, J.C. Snead, Bob E. Smith, John Paul Cain and Dale Douglass. Bob Wynn and defending champion Graham Marsh were at 70.

Hale Irwin, who has won five senior tournaments and $1.62 million during his first full year on the tour, was at 72, five strokes off the pace.

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Esteban Toldeo of Costa Mesa fired his second consecutive 67 and took a two-stroke lead over Doug DuChateau of Eugene, Ore. after three rounds of the $100,000 Queen Mary Open at the Lakewood Country Club. Toledo is at 199, 17 under.

Jurisprudence

Two Arkansas basketball players were arrested in a dorm room and charged with smoking marijuana, a misdemeanor.

Kareem Reid and Marlon Towns, both freshmen, were arrested along with another student. They were cited and released.

A New Jersey appeals court has upheld a lower court decision ordering former New York Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor to pay $2,010 a month in child support for his illegitimate son.

The child support payments stem from a paternity suit filed in 1991 by Wendy Robinson of Jersey City, claiming Taylor fathered a son by her in 1990.

College Baseball

Chris Moller’s three-run homer with one out in the bottom of the ninth carried top-seeded Alabama to a 7-5 victory over Oklahoma State in the opener of the College World Series at Omaha.

Alabama (50-17) will play Clemson or Miami Sunday.

Matt Randel pitched a four-hitter as Lewis-Clark State of Lewiston, Idaho, blanked St. Ambrose of Davenport, Iowa, 9-0, for the NAIA championship at Sioux City, Iowa.

Randel (8-0) struck out 10 without allowing a walk. Losing pitcher Todd Zaehringer (9-6) allowed 16 hits and eight runs in 4 1/3 innings.

Hockey

The Edmonton Oilers announced that they have sold 13,000 season tickets for the 1996-97 season, ensuring that they won’t move.

The Oilers will qualify for up to $2.5 million in league subsidies for last season and as much as $7 million next year.

The subsidy was created by the league to help Canadian teams faced with paying many costs, including player salaries, in U.S. dollars.

Detroit Red Wing center Kris Draper underwent 2 1/2 hours of surgery on his broken jaw. He was injured in the first period of Wednesday night’s deciding loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion on the hit and has 40 stitches in his right cheek.

The Calgary Flames named Ron Bremner, a Vancouver broadcasting executive, their new team president. He succeeds Bill Hay, who was fired in 1995.

Al Coates, who had been serving as interim president, was named general manager.

Auto Racing

Jeff Gordon claimed the pole for Sunday’s Miller 500 Winston Cup NASCAR race at Dover Downs International Speedway with a track record of 154.785 mph in his Chevrolet.

At the same track, Bobby Labonte set a track record of 149.963 mph in qualifying for today’s Busch Grand National race, beating the 1994 qualifying record of Harry Gant, 149.638 mph.

Miscellany

UCLA’s Jackie Steinmann was selected national coach of the year by the National Golf Coaches’ Assn. UCLA’s Jenny Park was named a first team-All-American, and teammate Kathi Choi was named to the second team. Amandine Vincent and Jeong Min Park made the third team.