Jaco van Zyl on Thursday made nine birdies and an eagle for an 11-under 61 to take a three-shot lead after the first round of the Turkish Airlines Open.
The South African’s eagle came on the par-five 11th hole and he then added five birdies on the last six holes for a score that would have been a course record if not for preferred lies being used.
“I played really nicely, and honestly I thought four-under-par around here was a good score,” Van Zyl said. “I got it going early in the round and just kept it going. It was really good fun.”
Lee Westwood was second after a bogey-free 64, his lowest score in more than a year. Westwood made four straight birdies from the 14th, but only picked up one shot on the five par-fives, which Van Zyl played in six-under.
Westwood has slipped from No. 1 to No. 46 in the rankings after a disappointing season, but said he feels like “something has finally clicked.”
“It’s stuff I’ve worked on before, but just a slightly different idea to give myself the same feeling as I got when I was playing well,” Westwood said. “I’m no spring chicken anymore. I’ve been training my hips to work in a certain way the last couple of years, but not playing very well and with not a great hip and leg action. I’m trying to train my way out of it now and get it back to where it was.”
Rory McIlroy made four birdies on his back nine and was in a group tied for fourth after a 67.
“I feel like my game came together a lot more on the back nine,” McIlroy said. “I was trying to find my rhythm for the first few holes and made a good par save on 18, which gave me some momentum going into the back nine, so overall I’m pretty pleased.”
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