Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott were not paired together for the first two rounds of the Australian Open because organizers wanted to split their marquee players among morning and afternoon groups for the spectators and television.
After yesterday’s opening round, they are also at opposite ends of the scoreboard.
McIlroy teed off in overcast conditions early yesterday and finished with a two-under 69 just as Scott was beginning his round — and not very well at that.
Scott’s tee shot on the first went into the woods and he made double-bogey as he shot 74 at The Australian Golf Club.
The Northern Irishman was two strokes behind first-round leader American Jordan Spieth (67). Scott was in 82nd place and will need a good round today to make the cut.
“I made the worst of my worst shots and didn’t convert the good ones early,” Scott said. “I have to play three really great days now and it seems that’s what I’m doing week after week, but I’ll claw my way back into it tomorrow morning.”
Australians Aron Price and Scott Gardiner, who had a hole-in-one yesterday, were tied for second with 68s, with McIlroy in a group of seven tied for fourth.
Spieth, who was playing in Scott’s group, said that he initially expected a rough day.
“When we came out this morning, it was misty and the wind was blowing hard,” Spieth said. “I knew that it was going to play difficult, but once the conditions started to clear for us; there was certainly a score out there.”
Spieth said he was impressed with Scott’s calm demeanor despite the Australian’s difficulties yesterday.
“When you know he is having a bad day, a great champion like he is, to see how positive he remains on each shot,” Spieth said.
Geoff Ogilvy, playing with McIlroy, shot 40 on the front nine, his second, including two double-bogeys, and had a 74.
McIlroy said the morning conditions were “pretty tricky.”
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