Garcia leads Players; Wie still struggling

SPORTS WIRE

Sergio Garcia put together his third consecutive impressive round at The Players Championship. The first two gave him a runner-up finish last year. The 6-under 66 on Thursday was only a great start.

Garcia birdied all the par 5s and picked up a bonus birdie with a 50-foot putt on the 14th hole to build a two-shot lead on the frightening Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. It was a good step toward ending a career-long 0-for-53 drought on the PGA Tour.

Kenny Perry and Paul Goydos each had a 68 in the mild, morning breeze on a perfectly conditioned course. Sawgrass turned tricky, if not downright difficult, in the afternoon. Of the 34 players who broke par in the opening round, only eight played in the afternoon in the increasingly blustery conditions. Todd Hamilton was the best among late starters with a 69, while Wachovia winner Anthony Kim rallied for a 70.

Phil Mickelson, trying to become the first player in the history of this tournament to successfully defend his title, was flirting with the leaders until a sloppy middle to his round put him at 70.

•  •  The booming drives were there, but more often than not, Michelle Wie didn't know where they were going in her first round on the LPGA Tour since February.

The best scores, as usual, belonged to just about everyone else -- a course record-tying 63 by Scotland's Mhairi McKay and a potential battle looming between Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam in the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill in Williamsburg, Va.

Once the most heralded young player in the women's game, Wie managed just one birdie in a zig-zagging 4-over 75 on a soggy day, even as the River Course yielded its fourth 8-under 63 in six years, 64s to Sorenstam and Sun Young Yoo, and 65s to Ochoa and Diana D'Alessio.

Notre Dame and Arizona State will play in the new $1 billion home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, on Oct. 5, 2013.

The complex, with a retractable roof, is scheduled to open for the 2009 season. Notre Dame will be the home team for the game, which will give NBC the television rights.

The Fighting Irish and Sun Devils played a home-and-home series in 1998-99, with Notre Dame winning both.

•  •  A federal judge ordered imprisoned quarterback Michael Vick to repay more than $2.4 million to a Canadian bank for defaulting on a loan.

The Royal Bank of Canada sued Vick in September, arguing his guilty plea to a federal dogfighting charge -- and the resulting impact on his career -- prevented him from repaying the loan.

•  •  Cleveland Browns linebacker Willie McGinest told SI.com that the 2008 season, his 15th in the NFL, will be his last. McGinest, who played 12 seasons and won three Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, owns the record for most postseason sacks with 16 and the single-game playoff record with 4½.

Zach Parise's power-play goal with 8:57 left snapped a tie and gave the United States a 6-4 victory over Germany in a qualifying-round game at the world championship in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Americans appeared to have the game in hand when they scored three times in the opening 2:52, but Germany chipped away at the lead, tying the score at 4-4 early in the third. The Blackhawks' James Wisniewski scored the third U.S. goal.

AP