Mark O'Meara and Nick Price won the 19th annual ADT Golf Skills Challenge at The Breakers on Monday.

The duo beat Fred Couples and Dustin Johnson in the reverse scramble final, in which teams picked the worst shot of the opponents to be played throughout the 4-par, 10th hole.

The finalists had to play out the hole twice to come up with the winners after both teams shot par on the first go around.

On the second attempt, Price holed for par, which was good enough to win. O'Meara, Couples and Johnson were unable to par the hole.

"Certainly with those two guys hitting the ball as far as they do I said to Mark, 'if we just keep the ball in play and just keep making pars one of them is going to hit a bad tee shot, eventually," Price said. "They put themselves on the wrong side of the hole and left themselves a really difficult chip shot."

Couples and Johnson won four of the six skills challenges: long drive, mid-iron, trouble shot, and short iron. Price and O'Meara won the chip shot.

Rickie Fowler and Scott Verplank were third and won the bunker-shot challenge.

Hockey star Wayne Gretzky, the only non-professional golfer in the field, teamed with Ricky Barnes to come in fourth. Their team earned $132,000, and Gretzky was donating his portion of the money to his charity.

"I think golf is the one sport that we can all do to emulate the pros," Gretzky said. "It's hard to get out there and try to go one-on-one against Shaq, it's hard to get on the ice against the NHL. But we can get on the golf course because it's us and the course.

BOXING

Margarito praises PacquiaoAntonio Margarito congratulated Manny Pacquiao from his hospital bed in Dallas, calling him the best fighter in the world.

Margarito, who is scheduled to undergo surgery Tuesday for a fractured right orbital bone, issued a statement thanking his fans for supporting him in his lopsided loss to Pacquiao at Cowboys Stadium.

"I gave it all I had, but unfortunately I was not able to get the victory over the best fighter in the world today," Margarito said. "As I said before the fight I was never going to quit and tried to win this fight to the very last minute"

Margarito lasted all 12 rounds in the loss, but took such a beating that both eyes were swollen shut and his face was a bloody mess. He has been hospitalized since, with doctors waiting until the swelling goes down to perform the surgery.

BASEBALL

Pirates hire Hurdle as managerThe Pirates made it official Monday, hiring Clint Hurdle as their sixth manager since their last winning season in 1992. ... The Phillies hired Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg to manager their Triple-A affiliate, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. ... The Phillies re-signed righthander Jose Contreras to a $5.5 million, two-year contract with a club option for 2013. ... Infielder Geoff Blum became the first of the 166 free agents to switch teams, agreeing to a $2.7 million, two-year contract with the Diamondbacks. ... Ed "Spanky" Kirkpatrick, who played seven seasons for the Angels during a 16-year major league career, died. He was 66. The team says he died Monday. No immediate cause of death was available. ... The Reds agreed to a 1-year, $3 million deal with catcher Ramon Hernandez, who started a team-high 85 games behind the plate last season.

AROUND THE HORN

Wrestling: Imre Polyak, a 1964 Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling and a three-time world champion, died Monday. He was 78.

Biathlon: The International Biathlon Union fined Russia $68,000 for a series of doping violations.

Running: Haile Gebrselassie called off his retirement after eight days. Gebrselassie said he had changed his mind and would run until the 2012 London Olympics. The 37-year-old marathon world-record holder had announced his retirement after pulling out of the New York City Marathon on Nov. 7 with 10 miles to go because of a knee injury.

ASSOCIATED PRESS