Sweden's Henrik Stenson and Australian Robert Allenby shared the first-round lead in the WGC-CA Championship lead on Thursday, with defending champion Tiger Woods four adrift.
Stenson and Allenby both carded 5-under-par 67s on a damp day at the Doral resort's "Blue Monster" course.
Denmark's Thomas Bjorn had sole possession of third place, one shot back, while Aussie Aaron Baddeley, Spain's Jose Maria Olazabal and US player Charles Howell were two back.
"I was putting good," Stenson said. "That's the key to my round, and [I] kept it in play pretty much all day long. And when I was in trouble, I managed to save myself."
Stenson was not sure what to expect from the course because of the weather conditions, especially since he had never played here before.
"It's always hard to have a figure in your mind, especially when I haven't played the course before," he said.
"I just went out there and try to do my thing, hit the fairway, hit the greens, play sensible," he said.
"I think a lot of times you have to be smart and miss it in the right places, if you do miss it, and don't short-side yourself in these conditions. I hit a couple of really nice putts when I had the chance," he said.
World No. 1 Woods, who is tied for 10th, was a winner on his last two visits to this course as well as the defending champion of the World Golf Championships event formerly known as the American Express Championship.
Trying for a "threepeat," Woods shot a 1-under 71 and is in a 10th-place tie. Woods birdied his first, 10th and 11th holes and signed for bogeys on his third and final holes. He needed 32 putts to get around.
"Pathetic," Woods said about his putting. "It's just weird out there in the sense that I putt a lot by memory and what I've done here over the years. A couple of the putts did the exact opposite than what they used to do."
Woods cruised to an eight-shot victory last year at The Grove in England to claim the American Express title.
He has won the event four of the last five years, including the last two.
He has won two years running at the Doral course in the PGA Tour's Ford Championship. Those tournaments featured a full 144-man field.
Woods has only about half as many competitors at the CA Championship, since it is an elite WGC event.
The newly renamed CA Championship is one of three tournaments Woods has won five times, along with the Buick Invitational and the Bridgestone Invitational.
Allenby also signed for seven birdies and two bogeys. He and Stenson were two of just 15 players in the 73-man field to break par on the "Blue Monster."
"It was just one of those days where I knew from the very start of the day that, you know, I just have to play within myself and just try and keep in control of the ball," Allenby said.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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