Australia’s Adam Scott sank two long birdie putts and hit a 5-iron within 2 feet for birdie on the 14th hole en route to a 4-under 66 and a share of the first-round lead with Hunter Haas at the AT&T National on Thursday.
Only 28 of the 120 players managed to break par at Aronimink, a course that most players said felt like a US Open — only compared with this year, even tougher.
“It’s a great golf course, obviously, but in great shape,” Scott said. “But they’ve set the course up beautifully. The greens are perfect and they’ve got very generous fairways, but severe rough, which is a nice balance. There are good scores out there, but you have to play well.”
Photo: Reuters
The US Open became a talking point because of how hard players had to work for their scores on a course with firm fairways, fast greens and several diabolical hole locations. The average score was about 71.5, and all but four of the holes played over par.
Rain softened the course at Congressional two weeks ago, and while Rory McIlroy turned in a command performance with a record 16-under 268, the 20 scores under par at the end of the week were unusual for a US Open.
“They obviously didn’t the get the greens where they really would have liked them,” said Scott, who missed the cut by one shot at Congressional. “And here, I think they’ve got the greens probably where the US Open would have liked them on a Thursday.”
Scott holed birdie putts of 20 feet and 25 feet early in his round, and finished with a 15-foot par save on the 17th and another 15-footer for birdie on the 18th. His lone bogey came on a three-putt from the fringe on the difficult 10th, and he called it a “stress-free” round.
The 30-year-old was not even planning to play the AT&T National, but felt his game was in decent shape and that he could use another start. So he lined up Tiger Woods’ caddie, Steve Williams, for another week of work. This time, they figure to stick around a little longer.
Haas ran off four straight birdies on the back nine early in his round and he was the only player to get to 5 under until he got out of position of the tee at No. 7 and made his lone bogey.
When he played his practice round on Tuesday, it was raining. Haas was surprised how quickly the course became firm, especially the greens. The reminder came from a scoreboard he saw just before he teed off, showing four players from the morning batch at no better than 67 — Joe Ogilvie, Jhonattan Vegas, Dean Wilson and Kyle Stanley.
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