Monty Will Stay Anyway

Two weeks after saying he would quit competing in the United States because of excessive heckling, Colin Montgomerie has changed his mind.

Montgomerie said he will compete in the Players Championship later this month and will not radically alter his PGA Tour schedule, which would include the major championships.

“Over the past week, the assurances that I have received from the PGA Tour and tournament promoters, coupled with the support I have received via phone calls, letters and e-mails from genuine U.S. golf fans, has convinced me that I should not let a small minority dictate where I should play my golf,” he said in a statement.

When he lost to Scott McCarron in the first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship, Montgomerie complained of being heckled and said he would stop coming to America because “I just don’t need this anymore.”

Montgomerie said reading correspondence from fans has reminded him of “everything I enjoy about playing in America.”

Tennis

It’s easy to summarize the women’s draw of the Pacific Life Open: Youngsters on one side.... veterans on the other.

Top-seeded Kim Clijsters of Belgium is in the same half as two other 18-year-olds, No. 3 Justine Henin of Belgium and No. 5 Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia. In the other half are No. 2 Martina Hingis of Switzerland, 21, and No. 4 Monica Seles, 28. Clijsters and Henin, who could meet in the semifinals if form holds, played in the third round here last year, with Clijsters winning.

Main-draw action begins Wednesday at the Tennis Garden in Indian Wells. Clijsters, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 3 in the world Monday, was a finalist last year, losing to Serena Williams.

Sandrine Testud of France withdrew from Indian Wells because of a stress fracture of her right foot. Also not playing at Indian Wells, for various reasons, are Jennifer Capriati, Venus and Serena Williams, Lindsay Davenport and Amelie Mauresmo.

Sixth-seeded Albert Portas and seventh-seeded Xavier Malisse won first-round matches at the Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic at Scottsdale, Ariz.

Malisse beat Michael Joyce, 6-1, 6-2. Portas beat Flavio Saretta, 6-3, 7-5.

Others winners were Wayne Ferreira, Greg Rusedski, Juan Balcells, Felix Mantilla and Andrea Gaudenzi.

Motor Sports

The future of The Grand Prix of the Americas was put in doubt when a judge ruled Miami illegally granted a new company the right to run the race and voided the deal.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Genden ruled that the city was required to have asked for competitive bids before granting the race’s rights to Raceworks LLC for the next 15 to 25 years.

The American Le Mans Series race was scheduled to run April 7.

The CART race in Chicago is back on.

Nearly a month after Chicago Motor Speedway suspended its auto racing schedule, CART said it will lease the track and hold the Grand Prix of Chicago on June 30 as originally scheduled.

This is the first time CART is promoting one of its own races. CART will lease the track from the speedway, but it will provide all of the people to organize the race.

Miscellany

The USC football team made the final moves in an off-season shuffling of its coaching staff. Gone are assistants DeWayne Walker, Wayne Moses and Kirby Wilson, who took jobs with the New York Giants, Stanford and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, respectively. Tim Davis, a former Wisconsin assistant, will coach the interior offensive line. Greg Burns, from Louisville, will handle the secondary and Steve Sarkisian becomes the quarterbacks coach. Kennedy Pola has switched to running backs and Lane Kiffin has switched to wide receivers.

Linwood Fiedler seized a substantial lead in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, arriving in Rohn, Alaska, nearly three hours ahead of his closest challenger, three-time winner Martin Buser.