GOLF ROUNDUP : Goydos gets lead; notables pursuing
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Paul Goydos doesn’t have a Q-rating, an endorsement deal or a top-30 finish in the last 16 months. What he does have for the first time in his career is a 54-hole lead — in The Players Championship, no less.
Seemingly immune to the mounting pressure and a course getting tougher by the day, Goydos seized the lead Saturday with a 10-foot birdie on the island-green 17 th and a great escape on the closing hole for a 2-under 70 and a one-shot lead over Kenny Perry.
As well as he played, his selfdeprecating humor was even better.
Asked if he had ever had a 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour, Goydos shook his head.
“But I’ve only been on tour for 16 years,” he said.
He was at 7-under 209, the highest score to lead at TPC Sawgrass since 1999.
Ken Duke (Arkadelphia, Henderson State ) is 14 strokes behind at 223. Duke fired a four-over par 76 on Saturday.
Perry saved par with a nifty wedge on the 18 th hole for a 72 that put him at 210 and in the final group today. Sergio Garcia hit the ball as well as anyone for the second consecutive day, and got nothing in return.
Garcia was tied for the lead standing on the 17 th tee, but he three-putted from just outside 10 feet, then hit into the rough on the 18 th and closed with another bogey for a 73, leaving him three shots behind.
Goydos has taken 78 putts, which is 18 fewer than Garcia, through three rounds.
“I’m a little bit disappointed because I feel like the last two days, I show the highest score I could shoot,” Garcia said. “And I still have a chance. With everything that has happened, I’m still there.”
The numbers are shrinking, with 13 players remaining under par, three of those with a major to their credit. Phil Mickelson, trying to become the first repeat champion in the 35-year history of this tournament, was making a move up the leaderboard until he knocked his tee shot into the water on the 14 th and took double bogey. He still wound up with a 71 and was in the group at 2-under 214, five shots behind and very much in the game. Even Goydos would concede that. “ I’m pretty sure Mickelson is not going, ’Well, I’m playing for second, ”’ he said. Also five shots behind was 50-year-old Bernhard Langer, whose two victories this year have come on the Champions Tour. A day after knocking in a 60-foot birdie on the 17 th, Langer three-putted for bogey and finished with a 75. The group at 1-under 215 included former British Open champion Tom Lehman (69 ) and Boo Weekley.
LPGA Sorenstam leads by three WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Annika Sorenstam shot her third consecutive nearly mistake-free round, and her 2-under 69 signaled that she may be ready to give Lorena Ochoa a run for No. 1 again.
Sorenstam, an eight-time player of the year, plagued by injuries in a winless 2007, gave Ochoa and Jeong Jang up-close evidence that the steady game that made her the top female player in the world for so long is coming back.
Sorenstam stretched her bogey-free string to 53 holes before hooking her drive into the water on No. 18. Even then, she drove again, hit a 6-iron within 8 feet and made the putt, the bogey leaving her with a three-shot lead over Jang (69 ) at 14 under. The Swedish star, a two-time winner this year, opened with rounds of 64 and 66. Ochoa lost her putting stroke and fell back quickly. Her string of four bogeys in five holes ended before Sorenstam made two long putts, both for birdie, to open an eight-shot lead over the woman who has taken her place at the top of the sport. Ochoa holed a long birdie putt on the first hole and was 2 under through seven holes, but 5 over after that, finishing with a 74 to drop into a tie for 10 th.
EUROPEAN TOUR Otto rolling at Italian Open MILAN, Italy — South Africa’s Hennie Otto shot a 9-under 63 to take a four-stroke lead into the final round of the Italian Open. Otto had a 22-under 194 total in the Castello di Tolcinasco course. Swedes Christian Nilsson (64 ) and Robert Karlsson (69 ) and Spain’s Alvaro Velasco (64 ) were tied for second. John Daly (Dardanelle, University of Arkansas ) was 14 strokes back after shooting a 4-under 68.
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