US Open champion Lucas Glover tightened his grip on the SBS Championship on Friday when three birdies in the last six holes put him three strokes clear after the second round.
On another surprisingly benign day on the spectacular Maui coastline, Glover fired a sizzling eight-under-par 65 to maintain a red-hot pace in the PGA Tour’s season-opening event.
After eagling the par-five ninth to reach the turn in four-under 32, the long-hitting American picked up further shots at the 10th, 13th, 14th and 16th for a 15-under total of 131.
Glover ended up just two shy of matching the tournament record for the first 36 holes, South African Ernie Els having set an aggregate of 17-under 129 on his way to victory in 2003.
“It was good,” a smiling Glover told reporters after recording seven birdies, a bogey and an eagle.
Fellow American John Rollins, helped by a monster eagle putt from 55 feet at the 15th, carded a 66 to lie second, one ahead of compatriots Sean O’Hair (67) and Matt Kuchar (68), Australian Geoff Ogilvy (66) and Britain’s Martin Laird (68).
Masters champion Angel Cabrera of Argentina was a further shot back at 10 under after returning a six-birdie 68.
The Kapalua Resort’s picturesque Plantation Course was vulnerable to low scoring with only gentle breezes caressing the hilly layout and 27 players in the 28-strong field shot below par.
The sole exception was PGA champion Yang Yong-eun of South Korea, who was two under for the day before he ran up an ugly triple-bogey eight at the last for a 74.
■AFRICA OPEN
AFP, EAST LONDON, SOUTH AFRICA
Johannesburg golfer Trevor Fisher almost overslept before taking sole ownership of the Africa Open lead with a second-round 66 on Friday.
The 1.95m Fisher stands on 132 at the links-cum-parkland East London Golf Club and confessed he did not sleep well in the eastern Cape coastal city and came close to being late for his tee-off time.
He is one stroke ahead of Swede Patrick Sjoland, who fired a 67 on the par-73 layout, and two in front of compatriots Thomas Aiken and Keith Horne, who returned a 67 each.
Fisher and Sjoland were among five first-round leaders and the other three slipped back as the chase hotted up for first prize in the 1 million euro (US$1.4 million) event co-sanctioned by the South African and European tours.
South African Richard Sterne (71) is five shots behind Fisher, compatriot Titch Moore (72) six behind, and Dane Mark Haastrup stumbled to a 75 and is 11 strokes off the pace.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with