GOLF ROUNDUP
Published 11:40 pm Thursday, October 9, 2008
TIMONIUM, Md. — Phil Blackmar, Bruce Fleisher and Des Smyth shot 5-under 65s on Thursday to share the first-round lead in the Senior Players Championship, the fifth and final Champions Tour major of the year.
Blackmar holed out from the fairway for eagle to help offset four bogeys, Fleisher made four straight birdies early in his round, and Smyth had a bogey-free day to top the leaderboard. All three are winless this year.
“I really didn’t anticipate this at all,” said Fleisher, winless since 2004.
Fred Funk, Scott Hoch, Bernhard Langer and Eduardo Romero opened with 66s and 19 players were within three strokes of the lead after an ideal day for scoring at the East Course at Baltimore Country Club.
Blackmar, a Champions Tour rookie who took seven years off from competitive golf, provided the highlight of the day with his approach shot on the 389-yard, par-4 10th hole. His shot with a pitching wedge from 106 yards landed about 10 feet short of the cup and skipped in for an eagle.
Combined with birdies on the ninth and 11th holes, he played that three-hole stretch in the middle of his round in 4 under.
“I had no idea that it would take so long to get back competitively to anywhere near where I was before,” he said, citing his final hole as evidence of improvement.
Out-of-bounds stakes loom just to the left of the fairway on the 460-yard, par-4 18th. Blackmar hit a perfect drive, played a 6-iron to 12 feet and made the birdie putt.
“I suspect that earlier in the year I would never have hit the fairway on 18,” he said. “I would’ve been bailing out so bad, I would’ve been outside of the gallery ropes.”
Smyth, whose son won nearly $14 million in the Irish National Lottery two months ago, hasn’t had a victory since 2005 and hasn’t even managed a top-20 finish this season. But he had three tap-in birdies on the front nine and birdied Nos. 11 and 14 to match Blackmar. Smyth narrowly missed birdie putts on his final three holes.
“This has been a really terrible season,” Smyth said.
“Really, I was just hoping I could find a little bit of form at the end of the season, so I could take something into next year.I know conditions were really good, but still, it takes a bit of golf to shoot 65.”
Other tournaments
PGA: At San Antonio, Australia’s Nathan Green shot an 8-under 62 on Thursday to take a two-stroke lead over Olin Browne and Paul Claxton in the Texas Open. Green, winless in three seasons on the PGA Tour, birdied nine of the first 16 holes before dropping a stroke on the par-3 17th and closing with a par.
LPGA: At Danville, Calif., Michele Redman and Sweden’s Maria Hjorth shot 6-under 66s to share the first-round lead in the LPGA Tour’s Longs Drugs Challenge. Redman and Hjorth both had seven birdies and a bogey on a sunny day at Blackhawk Country Club. In-Kyung Kim and Mikaela Parmlid were tied for second at 67.
Madrid Masters: At Madrid, Spain, England’s Paul Broadhurst birdied two of his last three holes for a 4-under 67 and a share of the first-round lead in the Madrid Masters with Sweden’s Magnus Carlsson and Australia’s Marcus Fraser. Spanish Ryder Cup player Miguel Angel Jimenez was part of a large pack two shots back, while former U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera of Argentina settled for a 71.
