Kevin Na had a hot hand with the putter on another wet day at the Crowne Plaza Invitational to shoot a four-under 66 on Friday for a two-shot lead at the halfway mark at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
Na had four birdies on the back nine before a scrambling bogey at the 18th put him at 10-under 130.
England’s Ian Poulter, who started at the 10th hole, also got hot in his second nine with four birdies in a 67 for second place at 132, one better than 2013 winner Boo Weekley.
Weekley overcame a nightmare start of four bogeys in his first five holes to shoot a 69 for 133.
Na rolled in a 25-footer to birdie the 10th, hit a 20-foot birdie at 13 that moved him to do a celebratory “Big Bird dance” and a left-to-right curler for birdie at 14.
“I had a lot of fun today,” Na said. “I was making a lot of putts, felt a lot of support and that put a smile on my face.”
After splashing his tee shot in the creek at 18, he dropped across the hazard, and hit a brilliant eight-iron out of the rough and two-putted to save bogey.
“Happy to walk away with a five,” he said.
Morning rain further softened Colonial and more rain was forecast for the weekend, but that did not bother Poulter.
“It doesn’t always rain in England, but it can,” Poulter said. “It’s just keeping your grips dry and keeping as many gloves as you can in the bag and obviously taking your time to hit your shots.”
Weekley battled back after a bad start.
“I struggled right out of the gate,” Weekley said. “A little bit of rain and my back wasn’t loosened up yet, but finally got loosened. To be able to finish with four bogeys and shoot one-under for your round, that’s real good.”
US Masters champion Jordan Spieth, an overnight co-leader with Na, Weekley and Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa, reached eight-under with a birdie on his 10th hole before two bogeys and a triple-bogey late in his round gave him a 73 for 137, seven strokes behind Na.
“Five-over on the last six holes was very disappointing,” Spieth said. “Just a couple of bad swings was all it was.”
Ryo shot a 74 in his second round to finish two-under at 138.
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