In brief: Woods receives award for off-course work

Tiger Woods picked up another award, this time for his work off the golf course.

The Golf Writers Association of America honored the world’s No. 1 player Wednesday with the Charlie Bartlett Award for his work with the Tiger Woods Foundation, which has reached about 10 million young people and given out more than $30 million in grants.

He also opened the Tiger Woods Learning Center, a 35,000-square-foot facility in Anaheim, Calif., in which about 5,000 students in an after-school program studied engineering, robotics and forensic science.

Woods, who won nine times worldwide and two majors last year, also won the GWAA’s player of the year award. The award, named after the first secretary of the GWAA, is given to a professional golfer for unselfish contributions to the betterment of society.

Tennis

Williams withdraws

Venus Williams withdrew from the Australian Open because of an aggravated left wrist injury.

She joins top-ranked Justine Henin-Hardenne on the sideline for the first Grand Slam event of the season, at Melbourne, Australia.

Olympics

Three submit bids

The three cities vying for the 2014 Winter Olympics submitted their final bid documents to the International Olympic Committee at Lausanne, Switzerland.

The IOC said it received the files from Pyeongchang, South Korea; Salzburg, Austria; and Sochi, Russia.

The panel will issue a report analyzing the bids no later than a month before the IOC selects the host city July 4 in Guatemala City.

Soccer

Beckham negotiates

David Beckham is negotiating with Real Madrid about a new contract.

Beckham, who joined Madrid from Manchester United in 2003, has been stalling on the offer because of a lack of first-team opportunities under coach Fabio Capello this season. He started only seven of 25 matches.

Beckham has also been linked to a possible return to the Premier League, a move to Italy or a jump to Major League Soccer in the United States, with the Los Angeles Galaxy reportedly interested.

Miscellany

Doping doctor accused

The Spanish doctor at the center of a major doping scandal asked cyclists for bonuses of up to $64,600 if they won the Tour of France, Spanish media reported out of Madrid.

Eufimiano Fuentes faces preliminary charges in Spain of crimes against public health. The newspaper also reported that cyclists had to pay Fuentes if they won an Olympic gold or the Giro d’Italia.

“Lawyers for the San Francisco Chronicle urged a federal appeals court to toss out a jail sentence imposed on two reporters refusing to testify about who leaked them secret grand jury testimony from a steroids investigation.

The lawyers asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court’s ruling that reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams should be imprisoned for up to 18 months for not revealing the source of the transcripts.

“A men’s World Cup downhill ski training session was canceled to preserve the Lauberhorn course at Wengen, Switzerland, which has been damaged by rain and warm weather.

Rain and warm temperatures also led to the cancellation of a women’s downhill practice at Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria.