Pinehurst, Thursday
DAVIS Love missed a three-foot par putt on the eighteenth green here
today to drop into a tie with Keith Clearwater at three under par for
the first-round lead of the $2m season-ending Tour Championship.
Defending champion Craig Stadler, who just sneaked into this elite
30-man field, and South African David Frost were one shot back.
Within the Tour Championship this week is another competition, for
Player of the Year honours, and five golfers have a chance. Of them,
Love's 68 was the best. Tom Kite and Fred Couples were next on
two-over-par 73, while John Cook and Nick Price each opened with 74s.
Love said that his round was a struggle. ''I hit some bad shots, but I
expected to do so because I took some time off from golf,'' he said.
About his closing three putts, he said: ''That second putt was the only
shot I didn't concentrate on all day. It was just sloppy.''
Love had a fast start to the 1992 season. By the end of April he had
three wins and more than a million dollars in earnings. Since then he
has made little impact. His only top-10 place was a third in Las Vegas
three weeks ago, the last American event he entered.
Couples entered this week leading in every category that determines
Player of the Year, but after a 77 in the Wednesday pro-am he displayed
little enthusiasm about playing well this week.
Love played with Couples today and commented: ''Freddie didn't look
comfortable with what he was doing. He was clearly frustrated with his
driver, and this is not the course to be unsure about driving.''
Couples had only one birdie, on the par-5 sixteenth, and his change
this week to a cross-handed grip did not demonstrably helping his
putting.
Co-leader Clearwater is one of seven players who qualified for this
tournament without having won an event in 1992. He has made a reputation
this year for leading first rounds and then disappearing on the
weekends. Leading scores (Americans unless stated):
68 -- D Love III, K Clearwater.
69 -- C Stadler, D Frost (South Africa).
70 -- G Norman (Australia), J Huston, D Waldorf, T Lehman, P Azinger,
L Janzen, B Faxon.
71 -- S Pate, C Beck, D Edwards, S Elkington (Australia), D Forsman.
72 -- B R Brown, J Haas, B Lietzke, R Floyd, M O'Meara.
73 -- F Couples, M Brooks, J Sluman, J Gallagher Jr, T Kite.
74 -- N Price (Zimbabwe), C Pavin, J Cook.
75 -- D Peoples.
* Volvo Masters -- Page 43
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