Woods takes tourney win in Thailand
■ PGA: Tiger Woods got a
hero’s welcome from the
homeland of his mother
The Associated Press
BANGNA, Thailand — Tiger
Woods began his trip to Thailand
with a bout of heat exhaustion
and food poisoning.
By the end, things were work
ing out quite nicely. There was a
royal decoration, a blowout victo
ry in the Asia Honda Classic and
a week’s earnings of more than
$500,000.
“Always keep the game fun,”
Woods said Sunday. “Obviously
golf is a very serious part of my
life, but when you stop having fun
at it, that’s when it’s time to hang
it up.”
Woods won the tournament by
10 strokes, receiving an embrace
from his mother on the 18th green
while a crowd of some 3,000 fans
chanted his name.
With no competition down the
stretch, Woods was smiling and
doffing his cap the last few holes,
the first time he could enjoy such
a luxury since he turned profes
sional last year.
Woods closed with a 4-under
par 68 for a total of 20-under 268.
He earned $48,000 for the victory
plus a $480,000 appearance fee.
“I knew my swing wasn’t work
ing well,” said Woods, whose
every move drew applause. “I
made some bad shot out there, but
I made some key putts and that’s
what wins golf tournaments.”
Kultida Woods, the golfer’s
mother who was born in Thai
land, hugged her 21-year-old son
after he paired the final hole.
The week did not begin with
such promise for Woods. He quit
on the 13th hole of Wednesday’s
pro-am with what tournament or
ganizers said was heat exhaustion
and food poisoning. The 20-hour
flight from California and the sap
ping heat left Woods weak with
jet lag and fatigue.
By the end of the week, that
was long gone. Woods, whose
closest rival was Mo Joong-kyung
of South Korea at 278, had five
birdies during the final round and
nearly eagled the fourth hole. He
had a bogey on the 17th hole
when a drive sliced into the wa
ter.
Woods was presented with the
royal decoration by Prime Minis
ter Chavalit Yongchaiyudh at a re
ception Sunday night.
With his mother at his side,
Woods accepted the honor for
helping promote Thailand’s im
age and credited his parents for
his achievements. He said his fa
ther, Earl, did not come to Thai
land because he was preparing for
heart surgery'.
“Papa, I love you,” he said.
“Tonight is special. It shows what
happens when two loving people
really care and share with a child.
Without their teaching, without
their love, quite honestly, I
wouldn’t be here.”
After the reception, Woods left
to catch a flight to Melbourne,
Australia, where he will compete
in the Australian Masters starting
Thursday.
Sharing third place at 279 at the
Thai country Club were Mexico’s
Carlos Espinosa, Taiwan’s Chang
Tse-peng and Canada’s Jim Rut
ledge. Rutledge closed with a 63,
breaking the course record Woods
set two days earlier by one stroke.
McCall’s story keeps getting stranger
■ BOXING: Oliver McCall said he was using a
fight plan, not suffering an emotional
breakdown against Lennox Lewis
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — If Oliver McCall was employing
some bizarre strategy to beat Lennox Lewis and win
the WBC heavyweight title, he forgot to tell his cor
ner about it.
McCall’s claims that he was playing possum in
some altered version of Muhammad Ali’s famous
“rope-a-dope” rang hollow not only with Nevada
boxing regulators but his own trainer.
"Lennox was in there with a lunatic,” McCall’s
trainer, George Benton, said. “Any man in his right
mind wouldn’t act like that.”
Benton stood, arms folded and a disgusted look on
his face, as his fighter first refused to return to his cor
ner after the third round, then refused to fight in the
fourth Friday night at the Las Vegas Hilton.
After standing in the ring crying between the
fourth and fifth rounds, McCall took a few more
punches to the head before referee Mills Lane finally
stepped in to stop the fight at 55 seconds of the fifth
round.
"They did not give Oliver the opportunity as a
fighter to play out my fight game,” McCall said Sat
urday, claiming that throwing only two punches in
the fourth round and letting Lewis hit him at will
was part of his strategy to win the fight.
"The man’s mind just wasn’t there,” Benton said
of his fighter, who is in drug rehabilitation for the
third time. “It started a long time ago, and it finally
caught up to him.”
Lewis, who had thought for a few minutes that Mc
Call was trying to trick him, agreed.
“McCall is just plain mad,” the new WBC champi
on said.
Nevada boxing officials, meanwhile, continue to
hold up McCall’s $3,075,500 purse pending a hear
ing within 30 days by the state athletic commission.
McCall could be fined for not putting up a fight,
pending the results of an investigation into his ac
tions.
“There was something wrong, something going
through his mind,” said commission Chairman Dr.
Elias Ghanem. “We would have a hard time licens
ing him again until we know he is back to normal.”
McCall appeared at a press conference Saturday,
along with a psychiatrist who examined him earlier
in the day and declared him mentally fit.
Psychiatrist Leonora Petty, though, recommended
follow-up treatment, and McCall said he would see
a psychiatrist two or three times a week while also
continuing his drug rehabilitation treatment.
Lewis, meanwhile, returned to London to savor his
new title and the revenge gained for his only loss, a
second round knockout to McCall when the two
fighters first met on Sept. 24,1994.
“Winning this title feels better than when I won
the first one because this one I won it in the ring,”
said Lewis, who was given the title when Riddick
Bowe threw it in a garbage can after refusing to fight
Lewis in a contract dispute.
Lewis will have 90 days to fight WBO titlist Henry
Akinwande, another British fighter who is now the
top-ranked WBC contender.
“Bring anyone on, I don’t care. Eventually I will
unify the titles perhaps in 12 months, but you know
what boxing politics are like,” Lewis said.
Lewis said he considered himself a true heavy
weight champion, even though most of the boxing
public considers Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson
the two top heavyweights.
Men: Ducks put away game at the tree-throw line
■ Continued from Page 9
shootaround [Saturday]. They
had four post players, so we want
ed to tire them out. That’s when
we started pressing them in the
latter half of the first half and the
start of the second. That did help
us later.
“I think the reason they were a
little tired at the end, maybe
missed a shot, maybe didn’t make
a pass, was because they did get a
little bit tired, and [our bench]
helped us get them to that point.”
The Ducks used their posts to
their advantage, getting the ball
inside to Kyle Milling, who tal
lied his sixth double-double of
the season with 15 points and 10
rebounds. Rob Ramaker had a
breakthrough game, scoring 10
points, only the second time this
season he has scored in double
figures.
“I haven’t felt like I’ve played a
good game in a long time,” Ra
maker said. “I wanted to come out
this weekend and really assert
myself as a player.”
When Kenya Wilkins was
asked who lit the fire under Ra
maker before the game, Wilkins
said, “I don’t know. 1 just hope the
person who did keeps doing it.”
It was Wilkins, though, who re
ally fired up the Ducks as he con
tributed a team-high 24 points
and played a solid 33 minutes. He
also heid his opponents, Kareem
Jackson and Blake Pengelly, to a
combined 13 points in 41 min
utes.
Wilkins said the Cougars’ de
fense concentrated more on Jamal
Lawrence than on himself.
“Teams are starting to not leave
Jamal [open],” Wilkins said.
"That’s giving me an opportunity
to score more points.”
But despite the focus on
Lawrence, he still scored 11
points, as did Henry Madden
coming off the bench.
One of the best statistics of the
game was on ffee-throw shooting.
Oregon hit 26-of-35, including 18
of-22 in the second half. This was
especially crucial after the score
was tied at 41 going into halftime.
The score stayed close for the
first 13 minutes of the second half
as the two teams went back and
forth with the lead. The Ducks
went on a 9-0 run in less than a
minute to take a nine-point lead at
about the five-minute mark. Al
though the Cougars narrowed the
gap to within four points with
2:47 to play, Oregon sank ll-of-13
free throws down the stretch to
win the game.
The Ducks finished their four
game homestand with a 3-1
record. They now hit the road to
the Bay Area next weekend.
Oregon men’s tennis
drops match to No. 17
Arizona, falls to 2-2
The Oregon men’s tennis
team, playing in its first of two
dual matches in Arizona, lost
to the 17th-ranked Arizona
Wildcats 7-0 on Friday.
Despite the shutout, the
Ducks did win one doubles
match when seniors Mike
Goldstein and John DeVorss
outlasted Arizona’s Roland
Kupka and Jean-Noel Lacoste,
9-8, in the No. 2 position. The
Wildcats, however, went on to
sweep singles play.
The loss dropped Oregon to
0-2 in the Pacific-10 Confer
ence and 2-2 overall. The
Ducks return home next week
for two matches, the first on
Feb. 14 against Portland and
the second Feb. 16 versus UC
Santa Barbara.
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