Argentine Andres Romero fired a six-under 66 to take a wafer-thin one-point lead over American Gary Woodland after two rounds of the Reno-Tahoe Open on Friday, in the PGA Tour’s only event using the Stableford scoring system. Romero, without a PGA Tour win in five years, mixed nine birdies with a single bogey and a double-bogey on Reno’s Montreux Golf and Country Club layout for midway total of 22 points.
Under the modified Stableford scoring system, points are awarded on each hole for being under-par, with birdies earning a player two points and eagles five.
A bogey costs a player one point, double bogeys and worse three points. No points are won or lost with par.
Woodland began the day one point back of first-round leader Josh Teater and ended the day in the same position returning a two-under 70 good enough for seven points and a two-day total of 21.
Sitting three off the pace on 19 points are South Korea’s Charlie Wi, and Australians Stuart Appleby and Rod Pampling.
Wi returned a seven-under 65 that featured five birdies and an eagle at the par-five 13th.
Appleby signed off with a 67, while Pampling made the biggest move of the day with an eight-under 64 that included nine birdies and a single bogey and added up to a second-round score of 17.
American Shaun Micheel, who returns to Oak Hill Country Club next week where he picked up his one and only PGA Tour victory winning the 2003 PGA championship, will get a couple of extra days’ practice after missing the cut set a six points.
Micheel, who has played in just four PGA Tour events this year missing the cut in all four, had rounds of 73 and 72 and four points.
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
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