Norman, Faxon Team Up For Win In Challenge

Golf

Don’t tell Mark Calcavecchia these unofficial tournaments don’t mean much.

Calcavecchia missed a 3-foot par putt on the 18th hole Tuesday to allow Greg Norman and Brad Faxon to repeat as champions of the $700,000 Fred Meyer Challenge at West Linn, Ore.

Had Calcavecchia made what would usually be a “gimme,” he and teammate Billy Mayfair would have forced a playoff. Instead, Norman and Faxon split the $100,000 first prize and become the first repeat winners in the event’s 11-year history.

“People write that there’s no pressure in these Monday-Tuesday tournaments,” said Norman, no stranger to final-hole golf calamity. “That’s rubbish. The pressure is there, irrespective of whether it’s the British Open or the Fred Meyer Challenge.”

Norman and Faxon finished at 18-under-par 124, the lowest score since the tournament moved to the par-71 Oregon Golf Club course five years ago.

Everyone wins something in this tourney. The last-place team splits $45,000.

Woods tops Amateur qualifying

Looking every bit like the two-time champion he is, Tiger Woods was the best of 312 golfers with a 7-under-par 136 at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Cornelius, Ore., to top qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Championship.

Woods, trying to become the first player to win three consecutive Amateur titles, shot a 67 and now has a chance to be the first stroke-play medalist to win the tournament since Phil Mickelson in 1990.

The 20-year-old Stanford student birdied four of the last seven holes on the difficult par-72 Witch Hollow course to slip past Bo Van Pelt, who finished at 138.

The low 64 scores in the two-day medal qualifier advanced to six rounds of match play, culminating with a 36-hole final Sunday.