Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell are refusing to underestimate any of their rivals after the high-ranked duo drew level with Australia at the top of the World Cup leaderboard yesterday.
Australia’s Richard Green and Brendan Jones went into the second round with a two-shot lead, but two bogeys over the final four holes left them tied on 13-under with Ireland, who carded a four-under 68 in overcast conditions on the Blackstone course in Haikou, on China’s Hainan Island.
“I’m not surprised to see Australia sharing the lead with us because every nation in this field has the chance of victory, so we will not be treating the Australians any less different to any of the other 26 nations,” McIlroy said.
Photo: AFP
Despite competing at the 28-team event without the likes of Adam Scott, Jason Day, Geoff Ogilvy or Aaron Baddeley, McDowell was quick to praise the two men who are representing Australia.
“Richard Green is a multiple winner on tour and we’ve played with Brendan many times; and he has a lot of majors and world golf championship experience,” McDowell added.
“He’s played in Japan and won many times over there so like Rory said, we will be showing the Aussies every respect, but then there is also Scotland just one behind and looking at the board, with two rounds to play, there’s 18 nations separated by just five shots,” he added after yesterday’s foursome round.
“Among those is the United States, Spain and New Zealand just three behind and there’s England and Holland, with Joost [Luiten] in the team, who is in good form after winning last week, at nine under,” he said.
“Today, I struggled somewhat on the greens, but overall I am happy with the way I am swinging the club in general, while Rory is still playing lovely,” McDowell added.
Ireland is looking to win the World Cup for only a second time in 55 runnings of the US$7.5 million event, whereas Australia have tasted success four times, the last being in 1989.
Australia started well and moved three strokes clear of the field when they birdied the second and then eagled the sixth, but an “ugly” finish saw them fall back into a tie for the lead.
“The 18th is a very difficult finishing hole, but it wasn’t just 18, because we bogeyed 15 as well and we struggled for pars on 16 and 17, so it was a bit of an ugly finish,” Jones said. “But the important thing for us is that we are still at the top, so they are chasing us and they are chasing Ireland.”
“We could not win the tournament today, but we sure could have fallen back in the field. So to be in the position we are in, we will take the positives out of that and try and get some rhythm back in our game, and play a more attacking game,” he added.
The Scottish duo of Martin Laird and Stephen Gallacher had the chance to join the leaders, but bogeyed the last for a score of 69 to sit alone in third at 12-under-par.
Scotland is seeking to capture the World Cup for a second time following the country’s maiden victory in 2007.
“It always leaves a sour taste in the mouth when you drop a shot at the last in any event, but Martin and myself overall are in a better position,” Gallacher said.
The US team of Matt Kuchar and Gary Woodland did not drop a shot in their round of 70, with the latter full of praise after organizers invited each and every American present at the venue to a lavish Thanksgiving dinner the night before.
“It was nice as we are all a long way from home and it was great to get together with a bunch of friends and celebrate a little bit of Thanksgiving,” Woodland said.
“But I’ve never had karaoke at Thanksgiving, so that was something new,” he added.
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