Top-ranked Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh shared the first-round lead at the NEC Invitational with 29-year-old Swede Henrik Stenson on Thursday, each shooting a 4-under-par 66 to sit atop the leaderboard by a stroke.
Woods twice escaped trouble from the trees but never came close to making bogey on a Firestone course that offered no letup for those coming off the US PGA Championship. He made a 15-foot birdie on his final hole for a 4-under 66, and later was joined by Singh and Henrik Stenson of Sweden.
Singh had a chance to take the outright lead until missing a 6-foot birdie putt on his 17th hole. He had to scramble from the rough to save par on the 484-yard ninth hole for a share of the lead.
PHOTO: AP
Davis Love III carried his good play from Baltusrol into the first round and was among those at 67, while PGA champion Phil Mickelson was all smiles on his way to a 69.
"I didn't hit it great today, but I left myself with some easier up-and-downs when I did miss, so it wasn't so bad," said Woods, who has never finished lower than fifth in seven appearances at Firestone.
Defending champion Vaughn Taylor birdied six of his last eight holes for an 8-under par 64 Thursday to take a one-stroke lead over Sweden's Fredrik Jacobson and Todd Fischer in a windy first round of the Reno-Tahoe Open.
Guy Boros was another stroke back at 6-under 66, followed by Australia's Aaron Baddeley, Jesper Parnevik of Sweden and Duffy Waldorf at 67 on the 7,472-yard course at Montreux Golf and Country Club.
Former British Open champion Todd Hamilton and Craig Barlow shot 68s. Among those at 69 were former British Open champ Ben Curtis, Joe Ogilvie, Jonathan Kaye and Paul Azinger, who splits his time in the broadcast booth, Japan's Hidemichi Tanaka and Brenden Pappas of South Africa.
David Duval, another former British Open champ, shot a 10-over 82.
Teenager Paula Creamer already has won twice on the US LPGA Tour. She is all but assured rookie of the year honors. She has surpassed US$1 million in earnings. She still has the Solheim Cup to conquer.
"It would just be so amazing to wear red, white and blue and play for my country," said Creamer, better known for wearing pink.
With Annika Sorenstam absent, Creamer has the spotlight at the LPGA's Safeway Classic, which gets underway today at Columbia Edgewater Country Club.
It is one of six full-field events remaining on the American LPGA schedule and one of two tournaments before US Solheim Cup team is named.
The official word will come Aug. 28 after the Wendy's Championship in Dublin, Ohio. Cristie Kerr is leading in Solheim Cup points, followed by veterans Meg Mallon and Juli Inkster. Creamer ranks eighth.
The top 10 players qualify for the team, and captain Nancy Lopez gets two additional choices.
Creamer, who turned 19 earlier this month, won last week in the NEC Karuizawa, making her first appearance in a Japanese LPGA event after winning twice on the US LPGA Tour this year.
She became the second-youngest first-time winner in tour history -- and the youngest winner of a full event -- when she captured the Sybase Classic by one stroke in May. She also won the Evian Masters in July.
Despite graduating from high school only three months ago, Creamer is second on the money list behind Sorenstam. Creamer is the youngest player in LPGA Tour to earn US$1 million, and no one has done it in less time on tour.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier