RED DEER ADVOCATE Saturday, June 7, 2014 B7
Crane shoots 65 at St. Jude WEATHER SUSPENDS SECOND ROUND BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Ben Crane’s back is OK, and his putter couldn’t be working much better. The combination helped him shoot a 5-under 65 on Friday to open a sixstroke lead in the St. Jude Classic before heavy rain delayed play twice and forced the suspension of play for the day. Crane birdied his final hole Thursday night for a 63 and rolled in a 44-footer for birdie to start the second round Friday morning. He had a 12-under 128 total at TPC Southwind, matching the winning score in relation to par last year. “I certainly didn’t see this coming,” Crane said. “But you know when you’re putting well, I started to feel like I was a little more in control of my ball, just felt like I was tightening my draws and fades a little bit. I had access to some
PGA holes I haven’t this year and so gosh, it’s been an incredible two days.” Crane has spent the past six months changing his swing to protect his back. A four-time PGA Tour winner, Crane’s last win came in 2011 at the McGladrey Classic and his best finish this year was a tie for ninth in the Humana Challenge in January. But he was in such pain he had a therapist with him for treatment during the round. “It’s been a really, really hard year, racking my brain what’s going on, what’s going wrong and have I changed that much,” Crane said. “You start wondering, ’Am I going to get it back.’ So this is super encouraging. My wife said last night, ’looks like you still got it.’ Because you wonder. But anyway, it’s been a fun start.” Carl Pettersson and Jason Bohn were tied for second at 6 under. Pettersson had one hole left, and Bohn had two to play. Davis Love III (70) and Billy Horschel (68) were in at 5 under. Phil Mickelson and Retief Goosen
were unable to start the second round. Mickelson, winless in his last 19 events since the British Open, opened with a 67 on Thursday, and Goosen had a 66. Friday got off to a slow start with 60 players needing to wrap up the first round with the second started 40 minutes later. Lightning delayed play at 1:03 for 59 minutes before play resumed for 13 minutes. Mickelson had just gotten to the tee when the horn blew again. Fans were sent home before a severe thunderstorm drenched the course, filling bunkers, fairways and cart paths with water. Finally, play for the day was suspended just before 5 p.m. Players are due back at 7 a.m. so they can make the cut for the third round. Love was glad to be done before the weather moved in even at 5 under, and he doubts Crane will run out to 24 under. This course where John Cook won at 26 under in 1996 was redesigned to a par of 70 after 2004. “So he’s off to a great start and we’ll have to run him down,” Love said about Crane. “He’s a great putter, and these greens are perfect, so he’s got
the advantage on us right now, but just hang in there.” Crane had perfect timing for most of his rounds. He played most of the first round after the lengthy delay Thursday afternoon, which left nearly perfect scoring conditions with little wind and soft greens. He was in the first group off No. 1 starting the second round, and he birdied rolling in a putt with a break of more than 4 feet for the first of 24 putts. He followed up his opening birdie by sinking a 22-footer for birdie on No. 7. He hit his approach from 147 yards out to 3 feet for birdie on No. 9 to reach 10 under through 27 holes. He sunk a 14-footer on the par-3 11th with the island green before rolling in a 9-footer for birdie on No. 13. His 8-foot birdie on the par-5 16th put him at 13 under. But Crane hit into a bunker on No. 18 and missed a 7-footer to save par on way to his first bogey in two rounds. “How do I keep this going?” Well, certainly just keep doing what I’m doing, and hopefully the same game shows up, and obviously continuing to putt well helps your score,“ Crane said. ”I think that’s the key.
FRENCH OPEN
Nadal, Djokovic to meet in final BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PARIS — Rafael Nadal is going for No. 9 at the French Open, and the only man that can stop him is Novak Djokovic. Nadal is already a record eight-time champion with a lifetime 65-1 record at Roland Garros. One more victory on the red clay will make him the first man to win five in a row and give him his 14th Grand Slam title — tied in second place with Pete Sampras. The top-seeded Spaniard reached the final by beating Wimbledon champion Andy Murray 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 Friday on Court Philippe Chatrier, the stadium Nadal calls his favourite place to play. Djokovic defeated Ernests Gulbis 6-3, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the first semifinal. Nadal has beaten Djokovic at the French Open in all five of their meetings, starting with a quarterfinal victory in 2006. They also met in the semifinals in 2007, ’08 and ’13, and in the final in 2012. “(It’s) nothing new for him to be in the final. He has the motivation to win Roland Garros for the first time for sure,” Nadal said of Djokovic. “But at the same time, he has the pressure to win for the first time. I have the pressure that I want to win and the motivation that I want to win the ninth.” The second-seeded Djokovic, however, has beaten Nadal the last four times they have played, including on clay in the final in Rome last month. “I’m going to try to be aggressive, because that is the only way I can win against him,” Djokovic said. “I know that, of course, this is the court he’s most dominant on. He has only lost one time in his career. This is where he plays his best.” The winner on Sunday will also be ranked No. 1 on Monday. Nadal is currently at the top, but needs to extend his French Open winning streak to 35 matches to stay there. He certainly played like the No. 1 on Friday. Nadal jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first set, then broke early again in the second and third sets. The Spaniard had six break points in the entire match, and converted each one.
Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS
Shanshan Feng watches her shot from the 4th tee in round 2 of the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic golf tournament Friday, in Waterloo, Ontario.
Park, Feng tied after two rounds at Manulife Classic BY THE CANADIAN PRESS WATERLOO, Ont. — China’s ShanShan Feng always concentrates while on the golf course. That focus meant she didn’t even realized she’d shot a round-best 6-under par 65 on Friday at the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic at Grey Silo Golf Course in to tie Hee Young Park for the tournament lead. “I have a habit that I don’t really look at the scoreboard during the play, so until you tell me, I don’t really know that I’m leading,” said Feng. “Today the wind was not as strong so I’m pretty sure the girls had better scores today. “I heard the weekend’s supposed to be nice, so we have to go for many, many birdies.” Park fired a second round score of 5-under par 66, a two-day total of 11 under, to maintain her joint lead at the event. Park was tied with Michelle Wie after the first round at 6-under 65 and she continued to shoot well, putting together her second bogey-free round. Feng also had a clean round, with six birdies for a 65 on the day. Park said she used the same approach as the first round, despite the
lack of wind on Day 2. “I still hit a lot of greens and my goal was try to leave uphill putts. That worked well today,” said Park, the defending Manulife Financial LPGA Classic champion. “I think that makes me more comfortable today.” Park said even though she has the lead after two rounds, she was reluctant to get too confident. “I think it’s still too far away to say something,” she said. “I’m not going to think about later or not, just keep on doing my same playing.” Even though her scorecard was flawless, Feng said she did leave some shots on the course. With three finishes in the top 10 this season, Feng is hungry for her first win and believes she is in a good position to get it. “My goal this year is to win three tournaments on the LPGA and now I’m zero. If I win here, I get one, that’s one down and two more to go,” she said. Still in the hunt is first round coleader Wie, though she couldn’t keep pace with Park and Feng, firing a 67 to sit alone in third at 10 under. “I was a little bit slow today and just didn’t get the ball close to the hole on my second shot,” said Wie, who added that she had to grind her way through the day. “I still can’t complain. I’m still
in contention.” The biggest climber of the day was Anna Nordqvist, who shot a 64 to jump into fourth place at 9 under, leapfrogging over LPGA rookie Xi Yu Lin, who shot 67 for the second straight day to head into the weekend at 8 under. “I got off to a really good start and I hit it good all day. I think I hit all fairways and all greens, so that makes it a little bit easier,” Nordqvist said. “I’m a little bit disappointed with the last couple holes, because I hit a lot of good putts that didn’t go in. Overall, I’m happy and it was a good round.” The leaderboard is tight after Nordqvist, as the South Korean trio of Inbee Park, So Yeon Ryu and Na Yeon Choi, along with Spain’s Belen Mozo, are tied for sixth at 7 under. Park had a 66 on the day, while the other three shot 67. Six players are tied for 10th while five Canadian made the cut of 1-over 72 to advance to the weekend. Jennifer Kirby, from Paris, Ont., and Langley, B.C.’s Sue Kim both shot 70 on Friday, and Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., came in at 71 to finish at 1 under after two rounds. Hamilton’s Alena Sharp also snuck into the weekend by finishing off at even par after shooting 2 under.
Penguins sack Bylsma, hire Rutherford as GM BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PITTSBURGH — Jim Rutherford doesn’t believe the Pittsburgh Penguins need to undergo a massive overhaul to regain their spot among the NHL’s elite. One thing is for certain: Dan Bylsma won’t be part of the process. The Penguins fired the franchise’s all-time winningest coach on Friday while hiring Rutherford away from the Carolina Hurricanes to replace Ray Shero as general manager. Rutherford’s first decision was to end the three weeks of limbo for Bylsma, whose star-laden teams had fallen well short of the Stanley Cup since winning it all in 2009. “What ownership wants here is a complete change in direction, one with the GM and one with the coach,” Rutherford said. Bylsma won 252 games behind the bench and was the Jack Adams Award winner in 2012 as the NHL’s Coach of the Year but failed to produce a bookend to the championship he captured
with stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in 2009. The Penguins were just 4-5 in playoff series since raising the 2009 Cup, with each loss coming to a lower-seeded team. Pittsburgh’s latest defeat came last month when the Penguins fell to the New York Rangers in seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Rutherford met with Bylsma on Friday morning as part of an organizationwide shake-up. In addition to dismissing Bylsma, the Penguins promoted Jason Botterill to associate general manager, named Bill Guerin and Tom Fitzgerald assistant general managers. The 65-year-old Rutherford takes over for Shero, who was fired on May 16. The new gig is a homecoming for the former goaltender. Rutherford played for the Penguins in the 1970s before spending 20 years with the franchise that began as the Hartford Whalers, moved to North Carolina in 1997 and won the Stanley Cup in 2006. The Hurricanes struggled maintaining that success, missing the post-season each of the last five years.
File photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford speaks at a news conference after a management change was announced in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, April 28, 2014