GOLF

Scott mastering Bay Hill with tournament’s lowest round in 30 years

Masters champion Adam Scott tied the course record at Bay Hill on Thursday with a 10-under 62 in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Orlando, Fla.

Scott made two eagle putts and had three birdie putts longer than 20 feet, one from off the green on the 15th hole.

It gave the 33-year-old Australian a three-shot lead and the lowest round in 30 years at Bay Hill, and it was good enough to make a big crowd forget for a moment that defending champion Tiger Woods is sitting out the tournament with back spasms.

SOCCER

MLS: The lockout of Major League Soccer’s referees has ended following an agreement on a five-year labor contract.

Replacements had been used for the first two weekends of MLS games.

WORLD CUP: FIFA ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia is interviewing Sepp Blatter and other voters who chose 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts Russia and Qatar.

FIFA said Garcia “is currently in Zurich and is also interviewing some of the FIFA executive members as part of his ongoing work.”

SKIING

OLYMPICS/WORLD CUP: Three-time Olympic champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany is retiring from Alpine skiing.

The 29-year-old German, the 2011 overall World Cup champion, won the super-combined at Sochi and also took gold in the super-combined and slalom at Vancouver in 2010.

U.S. ALPINE CHAMPIONSHIPS: Olympic slalom gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin won the giant slalom by nearly 2 seconds over Canada’s Marie-Michelle Gagnon at Squaw Valley, Calif.

AUTO RACING

INDYCAR: J.R. Hildebrand will drive a second entry for Ed Carpenter Racing in the Indianapolis 500.

Hildebrand will drive the No. 21 Chevrolet for ECR. Team owner Ed Carpenter will drive ECR’s other entry in his IndyCar season debut.

TENNIS

SONY OPEN: In search of her seventh title here, top-ranked Serena Williams capitalized on a critical double-fault by Yaroslava Shvedova to survive a 69-minute first set and win her opening match 7-6 (7), 6-2 in Key Biscayne, Fla.

In men’s play, Lleyton Hewitt became the third active man to win 600 matches when he rallied past Robin Haase 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

The 33-year-old Hewitt joined Roger Federer (942 wins) and Rafael Nadal (675) in reaching the milestone.

FIGURE SKATING

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: In Colorado Springs, Caydee Denney and John Coughlin, reigning U.S. pairs bronze medalists, withdrew due to Denney’s right ankle injury, suffered Wednesday.

Felicia Zhang and Nathan Bartholomay, first alternates to the U.S. team, will replace them at worlds, which begin Monday in Saitama, Japan.

– From news service reports