Tiger Woods and Ernie Els sat on adjacent benches in the locker room as they changed out of their golf shoes after spending three hours on the course, a short day of work at the Bay Hill Invitational.
Thirty players, including second-ranked Vijay Singh, had to play 36 holes on Friday in a tournament delayed by rain and desperately trying to get caught up. Singh loved every minute it, especially when he holed a 9-iron from 139m for eagle that left him one shot behind Charles Howell III and Stephen Ames.
Now they can relax.
Today belongs primarily to Woods, Els and 82 other players who must show up at dawn and won't be able to leave until dusk as everyone tries to sort out who's in control of the tournament.
The leaderboard shows Howell and Ames with scores of 71-68 at the top with a 5-under 139. Singh is right behind, thanks to an eagle on his 35th hole of the day.
"Our side got the better end of the draw because we do get to rest a little bit more, and that's fine," Howell said. "The fact that I won't have to do 36 in a day again the rest of the week ... we got the better side of it."
Woods and Els were each at 71 and scheduled to tee off at 7:45am Saturday to start the second round, along with US Open champion Retief Goosen (78).
Others weren't so fortunate.
British Open champion Todd Hamilton, Tom Lehman and Chad Campbell were introduced on the tee as the 6:30pm group, which was amusing since the sun went down about 5 minutes later. They got in one hole and all made par.
Then there was Vaughn Taylor, who made a double bogey on his 17th hole and then heard the siren sound to stop play because of darkness. Now he gets to return at 7:15am Saturday to play one hole, then stick around for the next six hours to see if he makes the cut.
This kind of week can fray the nerves.
Howell could deal with it. He's only 25 years old and had no trouble walking 36 holes, especially with someone else carrying his bag. He used to routinely go 36 holes a day in college, and about the only thing missing Friday was having Oklahoma State coach Mike Holder watching from behind the ropes.
"I made the turn [after the first round], they handed me a sandwich and told me to keep going," Howell said. "It was college golf. I got a boxed ham-and-cheese sandwich, a bag of potato chips and `Here's your new scorecard.'"
He did much better with the second card.
After opening with his seventh consecutive round of 71 at Bay Hill, Howell improved his iron play and made seven birdies, none of them outside 12 feet. He never graduated from Oklahoma State, but stuck around long enough to learn the difference between his two rounds.
"I managed to get the ball a little bit closer," Howell said.
Ames did the same, but over a shorter span of holes. He birdied five of six holes on the back nine and became the first player to reach 6 under par on a difficult course before back-to-back bogeys when he made the turn. Ames closed with four straight pars for a 68 and joined Howell at 5-under 139.
Singh couldn't make a putt. Then he didn't have to.
From 139m away on the eighth hole -- his 17th of the day -- his 9-iron went in for eagle. He could see it go in as the sun set over Arnold Palmer's course, but couldn't see much on the 18th when he missed a 2m shot for birdie that would have given him a share of the early lead.
Woods and Els produced a few good moments during their short time at Bay Hill. Woods was poised to take a share of the lead until his 3m birdie putt lipped out on the 13th, and then he couldn't make another putt until his 2m for par on the 18th that avoided a dubious finish. He shot 71.
Els was five shots behind Woods with five holes to play, but managed to catch him by starting to make putts. Goosen hit two balls out-of-bounds and looked out of sorts most of the round.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
Erling Haaland on Sunday scored twice to propel Manchester City up to second in the English Premier League with a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth. The Cherries started the day in second thanks to the longest unbeaten run in the English top flight, but Andoni Iraola’s side were undone by the scintillating form of the Norwegian striker, who took his tally to 13 Premier League goals in 10 games. Haaland’s relentless streak is maintaining City’s title challenge as they reduced the gap to leaders Arsenal back to six points and edged one point ahead of Liverpool, who they face at the weekend. “Important
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
RSS