SUNRIVER, Ore. — Coloradans Craig Stadler and Mark Wiebe are tied for the lead with defending champ Mark McNulty after Thursday’s first round of the Jeld-Wen Tradition, the fourth of the Champions Tour’s five major tournaments.
Gene Jones, Tim Simpson, Jay Haas and David Eger also shot 5-under-par 67s for a share of the lead. The seven-man logjam matched the 1989 GTE North Classic for the biggest tie after 18 holes in Champions Tour history.
• Former Colorado State golfer Martin Laird and Bob Heintz matched the course record with 7-under 63s to share the lead after the first round of Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C. — the PGA Tour’s last event before the start of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
They joined three other players who previously shot 63s at Sedgefield Country Club — nobody had done it since Gary Player in 1970.
Garrett Willis birdied his final five holes to join Scott Sterling, Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson one stroke back at 64.
• Defending champion Lorena Ochoa shot a bogey-free 6-under 66 to take a one-stroke lead over Annika Sorenstam in the Canadian Women’s Open in Ottawa, leaving Michelle Wie nine strokes back in her final LPGA Tour event of the year.
Flyers’ Stevens gets extension
PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia Flyers signed coach John Stevens to a two-year contract extension that will keep him with the team through the 2010-11 season.
The Flyers posted a 42-29-11 record last season — a 20-win improvement over the 2006-07 season.
QB sues NCAA on eligibility
CINCINNATI — Quarterback Ben Mauk filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, less than a week after the association rejected his final appeal for another year of eligibility at Cincinnati. The same day the lawsuit was filed, Hardin County Judge William Hart, in Mauk’s home area of Kenton, Ohio, granted a temporary restraining order that says the NCAA cannot prevent him from practicing with the Bearcats.
The judge set an Aug. 22 hearing on Mauk’s request for a permanent injunction against the NCAA.
Mauk claims he should get another season because of playing time lost to injury while he was at Wake Forest.
Footnotes.
Volatile as ever, John McEnroe got tossed from his opening-round match at the Hall of Fame Champions Cup in Newport, R.I., for a new kind of triple fault: cursing, arguing with the chair umpire and making an obscene gesture at fans.
• The Los Angeles Lakers signed free-agent forward Josh Powell, who averaged 5.5 points and 5.2 rebounds with the Los Angeles Clippers last season.
• Retired NBA player Vincent Askew, 43, posted bond in Miami after his arrest on charges that he had sex with a 16-year-old girl.
• Former U.S. goalie Kasey Keller signed with Seattle Sounders FC, a Major League Soccer expansion team that will begin play next year.
• Clint Mathis returned to Real Salt Lake when the MLS team acquired the 31-year-old midfielder’s rights from Ergotelis of the Greek SuperLeague. The Associated Press
