Langer withstands Haas' eagle to grab third-round lead at US Senior PGA
ROCHESTER, New York (AP) -Steady Bernhard Langer held off Jay Haas' late run, which included a stunning eagle on Oak Hill Country Club's No. 17, and took the lead after the third round of the U.S. Senior PGA Championship on Saturday.
Langer, the U.S. senior golf tour money leader, finished with an even-par 70 to put him at 2-over 212 for the tournament, a shot ahead of Haas and local favorite Jeff Sluman.
Haas vaulted into contention with an eagle-2 from the rough on the second-to-last hole, but then closed with a bogey to cap a 72. Sluman was among the leaders, but was undone by closing with three straight bogeys for a 70.
Scott Simpson and Bill Britton were tied at 216 and Greg Norman was part of a four-man group at 217. Otherwise, there's no one else close entering the final round of the $2 million (?1.27 million) tournament at an ever-stingy East Course that's surrendered only nine sub-par rounds over the first three days.
The field opened up significantly with only eight players within six shots of the lead. That comes after the day began with 25 players within six shots of the lead once held by Tom Purtzer, who tumbled down the leaderboard after shooting an 82 that put him in a tie for 25th.
Langer and Sluman spent most of the day tied for the lead and appeared in a position to run away from the field after the playing partners both scored birdies on the 14th and 15th holes. That put them five shots up on the nearest contender.
Then came an uncharacteristic collapse when both carded bogeys on 16 and 17.
Sluman added another bogey on 18, and Langer nearly did so too if not for a clutch 6-foot putt to save par.
Haas, in the meantime, went on a roll after struggling through a round that appeared to be going nowhere, and had him sitting 4-over for the day through 14 holes.
After a birdie-2 on No. 15, Haas produced one of the best clutch shots of the tournament after his tee shot at 17 landed in thick rough left of the fairway about 162 yards from the pin. Haas then hit a perfect shot that skipped through the narrow opening to the green and rolled directly into the hole, briefly putting him into a tie with Langer and Sluman.
Bruce Vaughan had a hole in one on the 164-yard No. 6 - the same hole that produced four aces during the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open.
Copyright 2007-2008, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
Faldo confident Montgomerie will be on his Ryder Cup team
VIRGINIA WATER, England (AP) -Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo is confident Colin Montgomerie can emerge from his slump and be part of Europe's team for the ninth time.
Montgomerie, who has never lost a singles match in the Ryder Cup, has not won in 10 months as his world ranking has plunged to No. 90. He already has failed to qualify for the Masters and The Players Championship, missing out on ranking points.
"I firmly believe Monty will turn it around. I certainly haven't counted that out," Faldo said Tuesday at the BMW PGA Championship, which starts Thursday at Wentworth. "He has a great way of producing the goods when really needed. A player of his ability has enough time to make it happen."
The Ryder Cup is Sept. 19-21 at Valhalla in Louisville, Kentucky. Montgomerie has played on every team since 1991, the longest active streak on either team. But that doesn't guarantee him a captain's pick if he fails to earn a spot on the team.
"It all depends where he is over the last six weeks of qualifying, what I've got on the team and what I need," Faldo said.
While Montgomerie's form may be a concern, other players are giving Faldo more to cheer about.
Sergio Garcia, a mainstay of the last four European teams, ended a three-year drought by winning The Players Championship two weeks ago. Darren Clarke, meanwhile, got his first European Tour victory in five years at the Asian Open last month.
Clarke's wife Heather died of cancer in August 2006, a few weeks before the Ryder Cup at The K Club in Ireland, where he played and won all three of his matches.
Faldo said Clarke's win in Asia "was great for Darren more so because of what he's been through off the golf course. Obviously I congratulate Darren on his efforts. What he showed at The K Club was character beyond belief."
Europe has defeated the United States by record margins (18 1/2-9 1/2) the last two times in the Ryder Cup and has captured the cup eight of the last 11 matches. Faldo, now an analyst for CBS Sports on the PGA Tour, has noticed a change in the U.S. attitude.
"It is very prevalent, the number of players who talk about the Ryder Cup," he said. "They are very keen. Every interview, any player, they want to make that Ryder Cup team. It's the top priority for their top 50 guys."
He said United States captain Paul Azinger will make sure "they'll be coming at us full guns. And that's how our guys will be thinking, too."
Copyright 2007-2008, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
Healthy Bohn soars to lead at Wachovia Championship
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -Jason Bohn and Phil Mickelson each switched to longer putters recently. Bohn was sinking putts and full of confidence on Friday, while Mickelson had trouble just reaching the green in a disastrous closing stretch.
Bohn took control at the halfway point of the Wachovia Championship with a 5-under 67. At 9-under, he held a two shot over Anthony Kim (67). Jim Furyk, who won here in 2006, Dudley Hart and George McNeill were three strokes back after 67s.
Mickelson, ranked No. 2 in the world, drew most of the attention here with defending champion Tiger Woods home recovering from left knee surgery. But after shooting 68 Thursday in what Mickelson credited to his longer putter, he plummeted into a tie for 25th, seven shots back. His 74 included two double bogeys in the final four holes.
"There was a low round out there, and I let it slide there in the end," Mickelson said. "Unfortunately I'll have a lot of work to do on the weekend."
Mickelson will be chasing Bohn, ranked 196th and all smiles after the pressure of his future on the PGA Tour was lifted last month with a sixth-place finish at the Verizon Heritage.
Bohn injured his ribs at the Memorial last June. Doctors misdiagnosed him, and he re-injured himself later in the year. He was held to 17 events and entered this year in a precarious position. Bohn had 12 tournaments to earn $257,668 and keep his playing status for all of 2008. His strong showing at Hilton Head ended his worries.
"I'm just excited to play. I don't have a lot of pressure now that my medical status is taken care of," Bohn said. "I can just go out and free swing it."
With first-round leader David Toms struggling to a 75, Bohn shot ahead on the strength of a putter an inch longer than he's used in the past. Bohn said his coach, Mike Shannon, had been nagging him for almost two years to make the switch.
"I just didn't feel comfortable," Bohn said. "Finally I wizened up and listened to him."
Bohn needed only 26 putts, a day after he had 27.
"When you're putting well, you don't really care if you hit it to 30 feet, you really don't," Bohn said. "You're like, 'I can make this.' Then typically you don't it 30 feet, you start hitting it 12 to 15 feet, and then you start running them in.
Bohn did that at par-3 13th, when his 7-iron landed 4 feet away. He knocked in the putt for birdie, offsetting his only bogey a hole earlier.
While Mickelson's putting wasn't as sharp Friday, that wasn't his biggest problem.
With an afternoon tee time, Mickelson birdied the 10th hole to get to 6 under. He missed a birdie putt at No. 14, then strolled to the easiest hole on the course, the par-5 15th.
But Mickelson sent his tee shot into the trees. His second shot was even worse, going nearly straight left. While the ball just cleared the water, it nestled in a horrible lie of pine straw at the base of a tree.
Mickelson hacked at his sunken ball, and it dribbled 30 feet. His fourth shot landed in front of the greenside bunker. A chip shot and two putts later, Mickelson had a 7 and had fallen five shots behind after Bohn had birdied the same hole in the group ahead of him.
Mickelson parred 16 and 17 before he sent his second shot into the creek on 18, leaving him with plenty of work to do to win this tournament for the first time.
"Just sloppy shots," Mickelson said. "I tried to hit a 3-wood off 15 to just get down there so I would be able to reach it, and I hit it into the trees left. And I had a wedge in on 18, and it was an easy shot. I just hit a poor shot. I don't really have a reason."
Bohn will be paired on the final group Saturday with the 22-year-old Kim, whose increased emphasis on his game is paying off. After missing three missed cuts, he tied for second at Hilton Head and is in contention again.
"I feel like last year was all a blur, and I didn't learn that much on the golf course," Kim said. "Now I'm starting to learn what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong out there, and it's helping me tremendously."
Minus Jay Williamson's hole-in-one at No. 6, it was a struggle for most of the day as the greens hardened. Whether scattered thunderstorms in the forecast hit the course or not this weekend could determine how difficult it will be for Bohn to get his second PGA Tour win.
"It's getting firmer and faster," Bohn said. "If we get a little rain and it softens up, I think you'll see some good scores."
Copyright 2007-2008, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
Watson, North lead Legends
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -No wonder Tom Watson and Andy North campaigned so hard for a return to team play in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf. They're very good at it.
Watson and North combined for a better-ball 62 at The Club at Savannah Harbor on Saturday for a 23-under 121 total and a four-stroke lead heading into the final round.
Brad Bryant and Lonnie Nielsen (60) were tied for second with Jeff Sluman and Craig Stadler (63). Bernhard Langer and David Edwards (61) were five strokes back on the island course in the middle of the Savannah River.
"We distanced ourselves from the second-place guys and gave ourselves a bit of a cushion," Watson said.
Watson and North, who have played 144 consecutive holes together without a bogey, teamed to win the Raphael Division the last three years, but it was always unofficial money. And they always complained.
"You've heard us for the last three years, standing on our soap box about how important it was to get this to be a team event again," North said after a blistering 59 the day before.
The Legends Division of the tournament, an individual affair since 2002, switched back to team play this year and declared the earnings would be official money in the annual rankings. Watson and North moved up.
"We do have an advantage," Watson said. "We've played team play the last three years. I don't care if you're playing the Raphael Division, or what you're playing. It helps that we've done it."
Watson chipped in for birdie on the par-4 14th to give the team a two-stroke lead at 21 under. They had three holes remaining when a passing thunderstorm halted play for 2 hours, 20 minutes.
"You never know what's going to happen (after a delay)," Watson said. "We thought we'd be finishing into the wind. Then, the wind changed. So we got a break."
Sluman and Stadler, starting the day three strokes off the lead, didn't make their first birdie until the fourth hole. Things improved after that. Sluman hit a 17-degree utility club from 240 yards within an inch for an eagle at the par-5 11th that got them to 17 under, just one back of the leaders at that point.
"We Mutt and Jeffed it pretty good," Stadler said. "It was nothing special until Slu's bomb on No. 11. That was really something."
Watson and North, meanwhile, were running off four straight birdies on Nos. 11-14. North's 45-foot birdie putt at No. 18 completed their charge.
Bryant and Nielsen had eight birdies on the back nine, their first nine.
"Gosh, it was fun," Nielsen said. "It's amazing when it gets going, because they just start adding up so fast and just one after another. So, loads of fun on that nine."
The Legends was first played in 1978 in Austin, Texas, and is considered the event that launched the 50-and-over tour. It was all team play until 2002, but always unofficial money. The tournament was played in four cities and on eight courses before coming to Savannah in 2003.
Copyright 2007-2008, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
Florida women's golf win SEC, men's golf finish fourth
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- It had been 13 years since the UF's women's golf team found itself in the Southeastern Conference's victory lane.
So Sunday's drive, with the Gators nearly lapping the field to get there, was especially sweet.
"It's about time," coach Jill Briles-Hinton said.
Her No. 5 Gators fired the only under-par round of the SEC Championship Sunday, a four-under 284, en route to the eighth SEC title in program history.
UF paced the field on all three days of the weekend, tying with Arkansas at nine-over 297 on Friday, and shooting a five-over 293 on Saturday to take a five shot lead over the Razorbacks heading into the final round.
Sunday's performance saw that edge swell to a seventeen-shot cushion, as the Gators finished at ten-over, barely within shouting distance of second-place Arkansas.
"It was pretty close at the beginning," Briles-Hinton said, "(but) we were able to put an exclamation point on it."
UF punctuated the program's first conference title under Briles-Hinton with a barrage of 18 final round birdies. No player had fewer than three birdies in her final round, with senior Whitney Myers recording five tweeters and freshman Jessica Yadloczky contributing four on the way to their three-under 69s.
Those scores matched the tournament-low 69 defending NCAA champion Stacy Lewis posted on Friday, but while Myers and Yadloczky couldn't catch the Arkansas star, the Gator without a driver's license nearly had Lewis eating her dust.
Freshman Hannah Yun, who turned 16 last Sunday, carded an even-par 72 Sunday to finish just one shot behind Lewis, alone in second place at one-under for the weekend.
The duo played together on Sunday, and though Yun tied for the lead after her birdie and a Lewis bogey on the par-5 14th, her bogey on the 16th cost the freshman a share of the individual championship.
Still, the SEC title is some birthday present, and Yun was happy to help a team full of veterans finally make it to the mountaintop.
"They've been through so much," Yun said, referring to the departure of senior Sandra Gal for the LPGA this year and a frustrating run of postseason disappointment.
Briles-Hinton was quick to point to her team's drive and effort up and down the roster.
"It's not about Hannah; it's about the team," she said.
Senior Tiffany Chudy, one of the cornerstones of the team, agreed.
"It changes (things) when you know you have five players who could be on top," Chudy said. "Even when one of us isn't going low, like I did (Sunday), everyone else still can."
Chudy's four-over 76 on Sunday dropped her from a tie for third to sole possession of sixth place, but, as she pointed out, the Gators' depth made up for that -- and then some.
Four players, from Yun at second to Yadloczky at 12th, finished in the top 12 for the Gators, and the team's 284 was the fourth-best round in UF history.
"To come out and do that," Chudy said, "we're just thrilled."
The Gators will next play May 8th at NCAA Regionals, the site of which has yet to be determined.
UF's men's team also competed in its SEC Championship this weekend, in St. Simons Island, Ga.
The No. 7 Gators finished alone in fourth at eight-over par but were nineteen shots off the pace of champion and second-ranked Alabama and ten shots behind third-place South Carolina.
"It was a disappointing day for us," coach Buddy Alexander said. "We got off to a poor start and did not putt very well today. I thought we didn't respond well like we could have."
Two-time All-American Billy Horschel led UF, firing a one-under 71 on Sunday to finish at even-par, eight shots behind tournament champion Michael Thompson of Alabama.
The men's team awaits a bid to an NCAA Regional, which would begin on May 15th.
Copyright 2008, U-WIRE
First round missteps cost SDSU men's golf title shot
SAN DIEGO -- There is always a question about how ready a team will be after a break from action.
Coming off Spring Break, the No. 21 San Diego State men's golf team faced a challenging field at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, Ariz., over the weekend, and the break seemed to take its toll as SDSU got off to a sluggish start and never recovered.
The Aztecs needed a round to get back into the flow of things, and it showed. SDSU shot a 20-over par 304 in the first round, setting the Aztecs back 25 strokes from leader Arizona State.
"We just weren't ready," head coach Ryan Donovan said. "We had a little longer break than usual because we have a long spring season ahead of us, and it hurt us right away in the first round."
Led by senior Aaron Goldberg who posted a 3-under 68 in the second round of the event, SDSU picked up the pace and climbed the leader board by coming together and carding a 2-under 282. But the Aztecs couldn't keep under par as they shot a 6-over 290 in the third and final round of the tournament, giving them a final total of 24-over 876 and eighth place. SDSU finished 33 strokes behind the champion Sun Devils.
"We rebounded well but we were just too far from the leaders," Donovan said. "The conditions may have been rough and windy, but we simply weren't as ready as we should have been."
Individually the Aztecs didn't show as well as expected with only two golfers in the top 20. Freshman Matt Hoffenberg recovered well from a first round of 77 by shooting under par in the next two rounds to finish tied for 14th place at a 2-over 215. Right behind Hoffenberg, Goldberg grabbed 16th place with a 3-over 216. The winner of the event was Espen Kofstad from Denver University, who carded a 3-under 210.
"I was impressed with how everybody battled through and kept going after struggling off the bat," Donovan said. "It showed tenacity and we have a long season ahead of us."
Senior Chad Mascovic tied for 46th place at 9-over 222 and freshman Johan Carlsson, who only had one round under par, finished with a 13-over 226 and a share of 69th place. Junior David Palm rounded out SDSU with a 19-over 232, which tied him for 78th.
The next event for the Aztecs is the Stanford Intercollegiate on Saturday and Sunday in Stanford, and coach Donovan is hopeful his team can rebound. And for that to happen, his team needs to improve its play in the first round.
"We'll probably be facing the toughest field of our season with teams like USC, UCLA and Cal," he said. "I could go down the list, but I know that we can come out firing and get up the leader board early and as long as we're in contention with nine holes to go, we'll be where we want to."
Copyright 2008 U-WIRE
Love will miss Masters, snapping streak of 70 straight majors
HUMBLE, Texas (AP) -Davis Love III's streak of major championship starts will end at 70.
Love had to win the Houston Open to qualify for next week's Masters and stretch the longest active run of major appearances. He shot a 1-over 73 on Sunday to finish at 5 under, 11 shots behind champion Johnson Wagner.
The 43-year-old Love will sit out a major for the first time since the 1990 U.S. Open. He tore ligaments in his left ankle last September, spent more than four months rehabbing and has struggled to recapture his old form, missing three cuts in seven starts in 2008.
"I'm close to playing good," he said. "I'm just not getting it done. I don't know if I'm ready for Augusta or not. I'm not really playing good enough to compete right now, so I probably don't deserve to play."
But Love said he's far ahead of the recovery time that doctors set for him. He wouldn't have returned so quickly if he had already secured a spot in the Masters.
"Because I was trying to get back in the Masters and getting back to playing well, I worked really hard," he said. "I've done really well and that's going to serve me well the rest of the year. But the Masters was definitely my motivation."
In 1995, Love won in New Orleans the week before the Masters to earn an invitation. He arrived in Houston this week with lower expectations, admitting that another dramatic victory was unlikely given the state of his game.
He was happy with his performance in Houston, shooting 69s in the first and third rounds. He was 2 under through eight holes on Sunday, then hit a bunker shot over the green on the par-3 ninth en route to a double bogey. He hit his tee shot in the water on No. 15 for another double.
"I've got to look at the positive, that I'm back playing, that I'm healthy, that I've bounced back from this injury," he said. "I've got a lot of great tournaments coming up. I might miss the Masters, but that doesn't mean I can't win the U.S. Open."
Love said he's going turkey hunting, then will the following week at Hilton Head, where he's won five times. He hasn't decided if he'll watch the Masters on TV.
"It'll be hard not to watch it," Love said. "But when I wasn't in the Presidents Cup or the Ryder Cup, it wasn't much fun watching. I don't know, it depends who's playing well. I've got a lot of turkeys to chase."
Copyright 2007-2008, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
|
