Lickliter Wins at Kemper Despite Stumbling at End

Holding a three-stroke lead with three holes to play, Frank Lickliter started a classic golf collapse: bogey at 16, bogey at 17 and a wayward approach at 18.

Somehow, he hung on. He chipped onto the green and made an eight-foot putt for par for his first PGA Tour victory Monday in the rain-delayed Kemper Insurance Open at Potomac, Md.

“I’m just delighted. It’s not how I wanted to finish. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t feel pretty,” Lickliter said. “The putt felt extremely good, though, on the last hole.

“It took me longer than I thought to get a win. It’s awesome. It looks like I’ll be playing here the next 20 years.”

Lickliter shot a 68 for a 16-under-par 268, one shot ahead of J.J. Henry. Lickliter and Henry were the overnight co-leaders at 16 under par after storms suspended play Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, Greg Chalmers, angry at a little bit of spying, cost himself about $95,000 with an unusual and very honorable disqualification.

During Chalmers’ first round Thursday, at least one of the caddies in his group was engaging in the slightly devious--but legal--practice of peering at other bags to see which clubs other golfers used for certain shots.

Upset after hitting a bad tee shot, Chalmers noticed another caddie trying to look at the club. Chalmers turned and said something like: “I hit a six-iron--just get away from me,” according to tournament director Mark Russell.

Under golf rules, that’s a no-no. It technically violates the rule that says golfers can’t give each other advice during a round, and it should result in a two-stroke penalty.

Chalmers didn’t realize that until Sunday night when he heard about something similar on the Buy.com Tour. He then went before Russell and the rules committee to explain what happened.

The rules left Russell with little choice. Because Chalmers didn’t incur the penalty at the time, he signed an incorrect scorecard for his round. He had to disqualify himself, even though he was tied for 12th place at nine under par with one hole to play.

If he had parred the last hole, Chalmers would have tied for ninth and earned close to $95,000.

Andrew Oldcorn of Scotland shot a one-under 71 and held off Angel Cabrera and Nick Faldo to win the Volvo PGA Championship by two strokes at Virginia Water, England.

College Sports

Matias Boeker of Georgia became the third player to sweep the NCAA men’s tennis titles.

Boeker, part of the team championship last week, won the singles and doubles titles to join Stanford’s Alex O’Brien (1992) and Bob Bryan (1998) as the only players to win all three titles since the current format was adopted in 1977.

Boeker beat Virginia’s Brian Vahaly, 6-2, 6-4, to take the singles title, then teamed with Travis Parrott to defeat Southern Methodist’s Johan Brunstrom and Jon Wallmark, 6-4, 7-5, at Athens, Ga.

“This is a dream come true for me,” said Boeker, a sophomore from Buenos Aires.

Princeton won its sixth NCAA lacrosse championship when B.J. Prager scored with 41 seconds to play in overtime, giving the Tigers a 10-9 victory over Syracuse at Piscataway, N.J.

Miscellany

Galaxy midfielder Simon Elliott will miss at least three matches in June to play for New Zealand’s national team in World Cup 2002 qualifying games, the team announced.

Elliott will leave the Galaxy after Wednesday’s game at Chicago and will head to New Zealand for a series of four matches, June 6-13.

Katarina Witt was “significantly supported” by former East Germany’s secret police, according to the government agency that controls the Stasi files.

A lawyer for the star figure skater last week asked a Berlin court for a temporary injunction blocking the release of her Stasi file to journalists.

Deena Drossin ran with the lead pack early, got progressively stronger and then won the women’s elite race in the Bolder Boulder 10-kilometer road race at Boulder, Colo., becoming only the second American to win in the event in the last 17 years.

Drossin, of Alamosa, Colo., finished in 33 minutes 25 seconds to defeat Ethiopia’s Ejagayou Dibaba by 17 seconds.

In the men’s race, Kenya’s James Koskei came across in 29:00, defeating countryman Joseph Kimani, the defending champion, by 29 seconds.

Mario Cipollini of Italy won the ninth stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race, his second leg victory in four days.

Dario Frigo of Italy finished in the main group at Rovigo, Italy, and holds the overall lead.

FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, said it had made a formal complaint of fraud against senior members of bankrupt sports marketing company ISMM Group.

FIFA claims that a prepayment of $60 million by Brazil’s TV Globo for broadcasting rights for soccer matches was paid into an ISMM account of which FIFA had no knowledge and to which it had no access.

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T.J. Simers has the day off.