TIGER’S RUN BOOSTS VALSPAR TV RATINGS

FLA.» Tiger Woods was one ORLANDO, shot away from a chance to win, and the PGA Tour had its largest television audience in five years.

NBC Sports Group said the final round of the Valspar Championship earned a 5.11 overnight rating, up 190 percent over the previous year and the highest-rated PGA Tour broadcast since Woods won The Players Championship in 2013. That doesn’t include the majors.

Woods, returning from a fourth back surgery, was one shot out of the lead going into the final round. He had a 40-foot birdie attempt on the 18th hole to force a playoff with Paul Casey and came up short.

The Golf Channel’s two-hour window before the NBC telecast Sunday earned a 1.65 rating, its highest-rated coverage for the lead-in window since it began in 2009.

• Woods and Ernie Els will duel in the Presidents Cup again, this time as captains after the pair agreed to be captains for the 2019 matches in Melbourne, Australia.

• Golf now has a modern set of rules for the Royal & Ancient game, an extensive overhaul that took six years and is aimed at making the rules easier to understand.

The R&A and USGA announced the final version of modernized rules on Monday. They take effect in 2019.

Among the changes will be how to take penalty drops — from knee-high length starting next year, instead of from shoulder height. There no longer will be penalties if a golf ball accidentally moves on the green, if a club touches the ground in a hazard or if the ball hits a flagstick that is not being tended on the green.

Pac-12 commissioner cries foul.

Add Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott to the growing chorus of people surprised by the USC Trojans’ omission from the NCAA Tournament field.

“Anyone that watched USC compete at the end of our season and at our (Pac-12) tournament would have no doubt they belong in the NCAA Tournament,” Scott said. “Anyone that watched our tournament would have seen that they dominated in their semifinal game and they were beating Arizona at halftime of the championship. I don’t see how anyone can look at that team as strong as they are in all aspects of the game and come to the conclusion they are not a tournament team. Moreover, they’re a team that would be dangerous in the tournament.”

NCAA turns its back on Valentine.

NCAA referee Ted Valentine, who officiated the Final Four last season, will not be working NCAA Tournament games this year — and he told ESPN it’s because of fallout from the incident in which he turned his back on North Carolina’s Joel Berry II during a game in January.

No-hitters abundant in college ball.

The season is barely a month old, and there already have been 10 no-hitters in Division I college baseball.

Hofstra’s John Rooney and Seamus Brazill combined on one against Mount St. Mary’s on Saturday. The night before, Auburn’s Casey Mize threw one against Northeastern.

Hofstra has two no-hitters this season after not having one in the first 80 years of its program. Brazill threw the first one against Lamar on Feb. 24 in a seven-inning game.

Venus bests Serena in straight sets.

CALIF.» Venus Williams INDIAN WELLS, defeated younger sister Serena 6-3, 6-4 in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open, her first win in the sibling rivalry since 2014.

It was the sisters’ earliest meeting since a 17-year-old Venus beat 16year-old Serena in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open. They played Monday night for the first time since last year’s Australian Open final, when a pregnant Serena won her 23rd Grand Slam title.

On the men’s side, Roger Federer beat No. 25 seed Filip Krajinovic 6-2, 6-1 in pursuit of a record sixth BNP Paribas Open title. He improved to 65-5 since returning from a left knee injury last year. — The Associated Press