It’s Shaky, Then Windy, as Furyk Leads
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The conditions weren’t steady but Jim Furyk was as he held on to his lead at the Las Vegas Invitational on Saturday.
After awakening to an early-morning earthquake then playing golf in 40-mph winds, the defending champion and two-time winner of the tournament shot a Saturday-best, one-under-par 71 to open a three-shot lead.
Furyk, who also won the tournament in 1995, is at 23-under 265 through four rounds of the five-day event.
Jonathan Kaye is in second after a fourth-round 73 at the 7,243-yard TPC Summerlin course.
“The wind was blowing so hard you couldn’t try to let the wind take the ball,” Furyk said. “You had to work the ball into the wind.”
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Despite playing with pain, Mark O’Meara and Colin Montgomerie advanced to today’s World Match Play final at Virginia Water, England. Montgomerie, whose mouth was “numb, all dead in there,” with a soon-to-be-pulled molar, defeated Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, 7 and 6. O’Meara, walking the last few days like a one-legged pirate “carrying a parrot on his shoulder,” because of a stiff neck and shoulder spasms, defeated Nick Price on the final hole, chipping in from 60 feet to win, 1 up.
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Sweden’s Maria Hjorth remained in great position to notch her second victory in four weeks as she kept a three-shot lead after the third round of the AFLAC Champions LPGA Tour event at Semmes, Ala. Hjorth shot an even-par 72, but her 54-hole total of nine-under 207 kept her three strokes ahead of Karrie Webb, Laura Davies, Chris Johnson and Cindy Figg-Currier.
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Allen Doyle shot his second consecutive 66 to take a two-shot lead over David Graham after two rounds of the Senior PGA Raley’s Gold Rush Classic at El Dorado Hills, Calif.
Doyle began the day trailing Graham by three shots. But the second-year senior player with the slap-shot swing had six birdies en route to a 12-under, 132 total at Serrano Country Club, while Graham shot a 71.
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