Around sports: 4 take lead while Spieth sputters at Players

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - For all the hype over Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth playing together and the constant curiosity over Tiger Woods, one element at The Players Championship didn't change Thursday. The star was the golf course.

Charley Hoffman had eight birdies in a round that showed the TPC Sawgrass can strike at any time. A triple bogey on his 10th hole turned a great day into a very good one. His 5-under-par 67 gave him a share of the lead with Hideki Matsuyama, David Hearn and Kevin Na

McIlroy lived up to his end of the bargain in the feature group with a 69. Spieth went the other direction, racking up five bogeys for a 75 that matched his highest score of the year and left him in danger of missing the cut. Jason Day, who jokingly described himself as the third wheel, had a 69 with a double bogey on the 18th.

Woods' round featured a tee shot struck so poorly that it went into the water on a par 3 - not on the island green at No. 17 but in a creek some 40 yards short of the green at No. 8. He also put his tee shot into the water on No. 18 for a closing double bogey and a 73.

Martin Kaymer, trying to become the first back-to-back winner at the TPC Sawgrass, opened with a 69.

GOLF

Meinhart, Sandlin

capture titles

Derick Meinhart of Matoon, Ill., won the mid-amateur division, and Lee Sandlin of Dallas captured the senior division of the Carlton Woods Invitational.

Meinhart shot a 3-over-par 72 in the final round at the Club at Carlton Woods to finish at 1-over 217 - three strokes ahead of Aaron Hickman of Addison.

Sandlin shot 74 to finish with a 1-over 217 total that was one better than Wayne Wright of Aledo.

PRO HOCKEY

Wild eliminated

by Blackhawks

Corey Crawford made 34 saves, Patrick Kane had a goal and an assist, and the Chicago Blackhawks advanced to the NHL Western Conference finals with a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild at St. Paul, Minn., for a four-game sweep.

The Wild never led in the series. Goals by Jared Spurgeon and Nino Niederreiter with 2:18 and 1:27 left gave them one last shot, with their net emptied. The final few whacks were wide or turned aside by Crawford, who stopped 124 of 131 shots in the four games.

In other news:

Carey Price stopped 22 shots, Max Pacioretty had a short-handed goal and two assists, and visiting Montreal won 5-2 at Tampa, Fla., to stay alive in their NHL Eastern Conference second-round playoff series.

Pacioretty and Andrei Markov scored in the first as the Canadiens avoided a sweep with their first victory in nine games this season against the Lightning. Game 5 is Saturday night at Montreal, where Tampa Bay won the first two games of the series.

Belarus beat the United States 5-2 for the first time at the hockey world championships. After five losses to the Americans, Belarus' milestone win at Ostrava, Czech Republic, was its third in the group stage. Also, Finland blanked Slovenia 4-0, Sweden topped Germany 4-3, and Czech Republic defeated France 5-1.

Colleges

Golson decides

to leave Irish

Quarterback Everett Golson announced he is transferring from Notre Dame for his final season of eligibility, ending an up-and-down career for the Fighting Irish that included a trip to the national championship game and a season lost to a suspension over academics.

Golson led Notre Dame to a 12-0 regular season in 2012 and a berth in the title game, where it lost 42-14 to Alabama. He was then suspended from school in the fall of 2013 for academic impropriety.

The Irish started last season 6-0 and were ranked No. 5 as Golson's record as a starter improved to 16-1. But Golson committed 22 turnovers during the season, and Notre Dame lost five of its final six regular-season games. He was benched during the regular-season finale blowout loss to USC, and Malik Zaire started for the Irish against LSU in the Music City Bowl.

Florida selects

White as coach

Florida hired Louisiana Tech's Michael White as its next basketball coach.

The school announced the move a week after Billy Donovan left the Gators to take the head coaching job with the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.

White, who led the Bulldogs to a 27-9 record and the NIT quarterfinals last season, agreed to a six-year deal worth $2 million annually.

In other news:

Baylor (280) is third, Texas A&M (281) is tied for fourth, and Texas (287) is sixth after the first round of the San Antonio Regional of the NCAA women's golf tournament. The Lady Bears' Hayley Davis shot a 5-under-par 67 and is tied for the individual lead, with the Aggies' Andrea Jonama one stroke back. Tennessee (276) leads UCLA (278) in the team competition. Texas Tech (292), Houston (300) and Lamar (305) also are in the field.

Julana Shrum pitched a three-hitter as Houston defeated Memphis 1-0 in the American Athletic Conference softball tournament at Orlando, Fla. The Cougars play Tulsa in the semifinals at 2 p.m. Friday.

baseball

Five-run fifth

dooms Skeeters

Somerset scored five runs in the fifth inning en route to a 7-1 Atlantic League victory over the Skeeters at Sugar Land.

From wire reports