Sorenstam Starts Fast, but Pak Keeps Pace

Annika Sorenstam was right where everyone expected her to be Thursday -- on top of her game and at the top of the leaderboard in the season-ending ADT Championship at West Palm Beach, Fla.

The surprise was who joined her.

Se Ri Pak thought about going home before the first round even started. She has an impacted tooth that has kept her from eating solid food in the last week, leaving her body so weak that a golf club felt as heavy as a sledge hammer.

“It’s too much pain,” Pak said. “I shouldn’t be here. However, I’m here. I’ll try my best.”

Sorenstam and Pak, the top two players on the LPGA Tour this year, traded birdies and avoided major mistakes on a balmy, breezy day at Trump International to tie for the lead at five-under-par 67, along with Meg Mallon.

Defending champion Karrie Webb had a three-under 69, despite making bogey on the 18th hole and missing a 2-foot par putt on No. 14. She was joined by Kelly Robbins, Lorie Kane of Canada, Rosie Jones and Patricia Meunier-Lebouc of France.

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Tiger Woods, in his first tournament since the Tour Championship in Atlanta almost three weeks ago, settled for par 71 at the $1.65-million Dunlop Phoenix at Miyazaki, Japan. He is seven strokes behind leader Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland.

Clarke, competing in his fifth Dunlop Phoenix, has a two-stroke lead over England’s Justin Rose and Japan’s Kaname Yokoo and Tsukasa Watanabe. Spanish star Sergio Garcia topped a five-player group at 67.

Defending champion David Duval shot a 69 with six birdies and two bogeys.

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John Daly’s mother died of lung cancer Thursday, and he said he’ll honor her wishes by continuing to play in the BMW Asian Open.

Before the tournament began Thursday, Daly told reporters that his 65-year-old mother, Lou, was seriously ill with lung cancer.

“Before leaving on this three-week trip, I spoke to my mom, and her words and wishes were that I should play in China, Taipei and Australia,” Daly said in a statement issued late Thursday night.

Baseball

A man was convicted of assault for punching New York Yankee pitcher David Wells and knocking out two of his teeth during an early morning fight in a diner.

Rocco Graziosa was acquitted of two other charges after a weeklong trial in Manhattan Criminal Court. The jury deliberated less than three hours. Graziosa, 27, could be sentenced to as much as a year in jail at a Jan. 15 hearing.

Boxing

Jose Navarro, a native of South-Central Los Angeles who fought in the 2000 Olympics, will meet Benny Zepeda in the main event of a six-bout card at Montebello’s Quiet Cannon Country Club tonight.

Navarro, 21, is 13-0 with five knockouts in his professional career and Zepeda is 5-1-2 with four knockouts.

Next up for Navarro is a match against Oxnard’s Carlos Madrigal (20-3, 15 KO’s) for the International Boxing Assn.’s intercontinental 115-pound title Jan. 16 at the Olympic Auditorium.

Miscellany

West Virginia students set fires on campus and hundreds tore down the goal posts at Mountaineer Field after the football team’s upset of No. 13 Virginia Tech on Wednesday night.

Emergency dispatchers reported that at one point there were fires burning throughout Morgantown, W.Va. Flames from one reached about 10 feet high.

Three people were arrested, but the charges weren’t disclosed.

A 14-year-old boy collapsed and died after he fell during a middle-school basketball game in San Antonio.

Gordon Matthew Gantt Jr. was helped off the court after falling in Wednesday night’s game. After the game he collapsed and was airlifted to University Hospital.

A preliminary report from the Bexar County medical examiner’s office said the boy died of complications from liver lacerations in an area of a malignant tumor, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Passings

Harry Watson, a Hockey Hall of Famer and five-time Stanley Cup champion, died Tuesday in Toronto. He was 79.