South Africa’s Rory Sabbatini fired a seven-under par 65 to share the lead on Thursday when darkness halted the opening round of the US$4 million US PGA Turning Stone Championship.
Sabbatini and American Omar Uresti were in the clubhouse on 65, one stroke ahead of Australian Steve Elkington, England’s Brian Davis, Germany’s Alex Cejka and American Brad Faxon.
BIRDIES
PHOTO: AFP
The South African birdied the third and sixth holes, the front nine’s par-3 holes, and birdied five of the first six holes on the back nine.
Uresti birdied three of the first four on the back side and closed with back-to-back birdies.
“It’s not often you can come off the golf course and jokingly say you should have birdied them all, but I did,” Sabbatini said.
It was the South African’s best round since a 63 at the season-opening Tournament of Champions.
“I played well,” Sabbatini said. “I didn’t score anywhere near what my potential was out there. I had a really good ball-striking day, had a lot of short birdie putts that I missed, a lot of good opportunities I squandered. But overall I made it a pretty stress-free day.”
RAIN DELAYS
Because of rains that halted play for three hours, there were 24 players still on the course when darkness fell, none with more than four holes to play.
Only two unfinished American golfers were a threat to join the leaders, with Chris Tidland at six-under with two holes remaining and Steve Wheatcroft at five-under with 17 and 18 to finish as well.
SCHEDULING CLASH
Top-ranked Tiger Woods and most of the world’s top players are taking part in the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational this week at Akron, Ohio, instead of this event.
American 15-year-old Gavin Hall, trying to become the second-youngest player to make a PGA cut, had a rough tour debut, although his six-over 78 in a debut made possible by a sponsor exemption was not too disappointing.
“It was a good day. It was all right, just a struggle from the first hole,” Hall said. “But that’s going to happen in golf. It was just unfortunate, one of my bad days of golf happened at a PGA Tour event. But I still have a lot of confidence.”
Southpaw Hall fired a 10-under 62 two weeks ago to set a record at the US Junior Amateur.
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