Montgomerie Defeats Els, Love Wins on Final Hole

Colin Montgomerie and Davis Love III will meet in the final of the Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf today at Scottsdale, Ariz.

The winner of the 36-hole match will receive $1 million.

In Saturday’s semifinals, Scotland’s Montgomerie closed out South African Ernie Els, 3 and 2, by making a 30-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole, and Love, the reigning PGA champion, needed an 18th-hole birdie putt to avoid a late collapse and beat unheralded Hajime Meshiai of Japan, 1-up.

Els, who walked away from a snowmobile crash in Vail, Colo., on Wednesday, got spines from a cactus plant stuck in the middle finger of his left hand while walking to the 14th hole on Saturday. A medical crew removed three needles from his finger.

Els three-putted from 80 feet for bogey on 14 as Montgomerie went 3-up.

Names in the News

George Shaw, an All-American at Oregon and No. 1 NFL draft pick who preceded Johnny Unitas as quarterback for the Baltimore Colts, died at his home in Portland, Ore. He was 64.

Shaw was the first pick in the NFL draft and started as a rookie for the Colts in 1955. Unitas signed the following year, and took over as the starter when Shaw injured his knee against the Chicago Bears early in the 1956 season.

Shaw played seven seasons in the NFL and one with the Denver Broncos of the fledgling American Football League.

Rell Sunn, 47, a pioneer in women’s professional surfing, died Friday in Honolulu after a 15-year battle with breast cancer.

Sunn, who helped organize the Women’s Professional Surfing Assn. and founded the women’s professional tour in 1975, was inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach in 1996.

Florida Marlin pitcher Livan Hernandez says his half brother--Cuban defector Orlando Hernandez--should leave the Bahamas and accept a special visa offered to him by the United States.

But agent Joe Cubas is encouraging the pitcher to seek asylum elsewhere so he can negotiate as a free agent and get a more lucrative contract. If he comes to the United States, he would be subject to the amateur draft.

Orlando Hernandez landed in the Bahamas on Dec. 28 aboard a leaky sail boat with seven other refugees and Hernandez has remained there.

“I do not want to leave the Bahamas until my companions’ situation is settled,” he told a Miami television station Friday.

Jeff Reese, the Michigan wrestler who died during a workout last month, tried to lose too much weight too quickly, Michigan Coach Dale Bahr told an investigator.

Bahr likened Reese’s crash weight-loss regimen to a student who waits until the night before a test to cram, according to an investigation by the school’s Department of Public Safety.

The probe’s findings were published in the Detroit Free Press.

Ed Reese, the wrestler’s father, earlier told the newspaper from the family’s home in Wellsburg, N.Y., that Bahr gave his son only four days to lose 21 pounds, nearly 12% of his body weight.

Jockey Katherine Mayo remained in serious condition but showed improvement one day after being thrown into a rail by her horse during a race at Portland Meadows.

Mayo, 33, suffered a separated spine, broken ribs and fractures in her back, and her pelvis was shattered in one place and broken in another. She was the top female jockey in the country in 1996.

Winter Sports

Todd Lodwick of Steamboat Springs, Colo., won a World Cup Nordic combined event at Schonach, Germany, improving from seventh after the jumping portion of the competition to beat Sylvain Guillaume of France by 1.7 seconds.

American Tim Tetreault finished seventh to clinch a spot in next month’s Winter Olympics.

Lodwick moved up to fifth place in the overall World Cup standings. Norway’s Bjarte-Engen Vik and Finland’s Hannu Manninen retained the top two places.

Christian Mayer of Austria won a World Cup giant slalom in slushy snow at Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. It was the fourth consecutive victory and the ninth in 13 races this season for Austrian skiers.

Mika Myllyla of Finland won a 30-kilometer men’s freestyle World Cup cross-country ski race at Kavgolovo, Russia. Myllyla, the world champion at 50 kilometers, won in 1:11:46.34. Norway’s Thomas Alsgaard was second.

Kim Moon-Jung of Korea edged teammate Joo Min-Jin to win the 1,500-meter women’s title at the World Junior Short-Track Speedskating Championships at St. Louis.

Canada’s Andrew Lahey took top honors in the men’s 1,500.