In Brief

golf

Hjorth wins with 5 under
in LPGA Championship

Maria Hjorth won the LPGA Tour Championship in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, using a final-round par 72 to hold off a field that struggled to make par.

Hjorth had three birdies and three bogeys at Grand Cypress Golf Club, where only six of 120 players finished below par for the tournament. Third-round leader Amy Yang shot 74 to finish one shot back.

Hjorth finished at 5-under-par 283, the highest-winning score relative to par all year except for Paula Creamer's 3-under victory in the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

Yani Tseng clinched LPGA player of the year, despite finishing 5 over. She is the first player from Taiwan to win the award.

Also: Lee Westwood cemented his year-end No. 1 ranking with an eight-shot victory at the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City, South Africa. He closed with a 4-under 68 and finished at 17-under 271.

Rickie Fowler was voted the top rookie on the PGA Tour in a vote of players, even though he didn't win a tournament. The 21-year-old had runner-up finishes in the Phoenix Open and Memorial and became the first tour rookie picked for the Ryder Cup team.

basketball

Hornets to become first
league-owned NBA club

New Orleans Hornets owner George Shinn has agreed to sell the club to the NBA. The transaction could be completed this week.

The Hornets will be the first NBA team owned by the league. After the transaction is finalized, the NBA will oversee the sale of the team to a permanent owner.

Shinn has been in negotiations to sell the team to minority owner and Louisiana native Gary Chouest since last spring, but talks have been stalled for months.

Also: UNLV opened the game with a 25-9 run and rolled to an 80-48 victory over San Jose State in a women's college basketball game at San Jose, Calif.

Thirteen players scored for the Lady Rebels, led by Kelli Thompson's 16 points. Reserve Erica Helms scored 11, and Sandrine Nzeukou had eight points and 10 rebounds for UNLV, which won its first road game of the season.

The Lady Rebels (5-2) shot a season-high 47 percent from the field and made nine three-point shots. They forced San Jose State into 18 turnovers and had a 42-24 rebounding edge.

miscellaneous

Huskies' Kill named
Gophers football coach

Minnesota agreed to terms with Northern Illinois football coach Jerry Kill on a five-year contract to take over the downtrodden Golden Gophers.

Kill went 23-16 and led the Huskies to bowls in all three of his seasons. Northern Illinois went 10-3 this season, including a 34-23 victory at Minnesota.

Minnesota went 3-9 overall and 2-8 in the Big Ten. Tim Brewster was fired in October after the team started 1-6 in his fourth season on the job. Interim coach Jeff Horton, a former UNLV head coach, finished the season with victories over Illinois and Iowa.

Also: Zenyatta bid a final farewell to her legions of fans at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif., pricking her cotton-stuffed ears at the gaggle of cameras one more time before heading into retirement.

The superstar mare who won 19 of her 20 career races patiently walked around the paddock before taking to the track for a final stroll before a crowd of 11,216. Fans cheered and snapped photos as Zenyatta made her way along the grandstand so everyone could see her.

Zenyatta finished with more than $7 million in career earnings.