Lehman Gets to $1 Million First at Williams Challenge

After going more than three years without a victory on the PGA Tour, Tom Lehman probably figured it would snow in Arizona before he won again.

Well, it did. And he’s the first golfer to win $1 million this year.

Lehman birdied five of the last six holes Sunday to win the $3.5-million Williams World Challenge exhibition event at Scottsdale, Ariz., by three strokes over David Duval, the No. 2-ranked player in the world.

Lehman, 40, winless on the PGA Tour since the 1996 Tour Championship, earned the $1 million. He closed with a three-under 67 for a 13-under 267 total on the Grayhawk course, which was pelted by rain and hail, allowing for snowball fights and halting play for about 65 minutes. Duval shot a 70 for a 270 total and earned $500,000 in the 12-man tournament.

Lehman, who finished second four times last year, had said he wants to eliminate some doubts he has had about his game in the 2000 tour season that starts this week. “This is a step in the right direction,” he said.

“I was very happy with the way I played the last six holes. I knew what I had to do. David Duval was not backing off. I hit some really good shots and made some really good putts.”

Lehman was the PGA player of the year in 1996, when he won the British Open and Tour Championship. But this was the first time he has played for this much money and got into the tournament on an invitation from Tiger Woods.

“I felt a lot of pressure. Good pressure though,” Lehman said. “It wasn’t the kind that incapacitates you. It was the kind of pressure that gets you very focused.”

Woods, the No. 1 player in the world, shot a 41 on the front nine and finished with a 76.

It was his worst round since a 76 in the 1998 AT&T; Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and only the third time he has failed to match or break par in his last 36 rounds. He finished 10th with a 282 total.

During the delay, Woods, 24, and 19-year-old Spaniard Sergio Garcia passed the time with a snowball fight on the 12th hole. “We just wanted to lighten things up a little,” said Woods, who had just made his third double bogey.

Necrology

A man found shot to death near the South Carolina border appeared to be the estranged husband of the woman who unsuccessfully sued Charlotte Hornet owner George Shinn.

Investigators preliminarily identified the body as that of Charlotte podiatrist Jeff Price, Union County (N.C.) Sheriff Frank McGuirt said.

“All indications are that it was a suicide,” McGuirt said.

The body, which had a gunshot blast to the head, was located Sunday by deputies after being spotted overhead by a private pilot participating in the search for Price, who was last seen alive Tuesday. A .410-gauge shotgun was found next to the body, McGuirt said.

The body was taken to Monroe for identification by the county medical examiner, who also will determine the official cause of death and whether an autopsy is needed.

The body was found about 50 feet from the South Carolina line and about half a mile from where Price’s 1994 Camaro was found last week in an isolated area of Chesterfield County, S.C., McGuirt said.

Leslie Price, Price’s wife, accused Shinn of forcing her to have sex with him in his Tega Cay, S.C., home in 1997. The couple said the two-year legal battle, which Leslie Price lost last month, strained their marriage and drained the family financially.

A former Stanford wrestling star who hoped to compete in the Olympics fell to his death on the Las Vegas Strip after climbing a light pole above the crowd of 300,000 revelers.

Tod Surmon, 26, of Menlo Park, landed on his head and died shortly after midnight New Year’s morning, after apparently grabbing an electrical wire attached to the pole near the Paris Las Vegas hotel, witnesses told police.

Surmon was celebrating the new year with friends a day after winning at the Midlands Wrestling Championships in Chicago, a major national tournament that put him in contention for the U.S. Olympic team, Stanford wrestling Coach Chris Horpel told the San Jose Mercury News. Surmon graduated from Stanford in 1996 with a degree in computer science and engineering and worked as a programmer at Aeris Communications in San Jose. He went to the NCAA championships three times, and was fifth in the 142-pound class his senior year.

Larry Bearnarth, the Colorado Rockies’ first pitching coach, died of a heart attack at his home at Seminole, Fla. He was 58.

Bearnarth, who died on New Year’s Eve, was hired by the Rockies in 1992 to scout for the expansion draft and served as pitching coach from 1993-95. He served as a major league scout with Detroit the past four years.

Bearnarth pitched in professional baseball for 10 years, spending four seasons in the major leagues with the New York Mets and the Milwaukee Brewers in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Miscellany

Dennis Conner’s Stars and Stripes beat Italy’s Prada by 1 minute, 7 seconds today and improved to 2-0 in the America’s Cup challenger semifinal series at Auckland, New Zealand. . . . Cammi Granato had two goals and an assist as the U.S. women’s hockey team defeated Sweden, 5-0, at Lake Placid, N.Y., in the championship game of the Christmas tournament.

WNBA standout Suzie McConnell Serio of the Cleveland Rockers had surgery to repair a fractured left foot but will continue coaching a Pittsburgh high school team. McConnell Serio, the Rockers’ point guard, had a plate inserted with four screws and also had a bone graft. She must wear a cast for four to six weeks. . . . Third-seeded Conchita Martinez of Spain defeated Sylvia Plischke of Austria, 6-3, 6-4, on the opening day of the Australian women’s hardcourt tennis championships at Gold Coast.

Ukraine defeated Slovakia, 3-1, at the world junior hockey championship at Stockholm. Both teams failed to advance from round-robin play.