Johnson steps aside
Hootie Johnson did everything but stand in the gates of Magnolia Lane when it came to letting in women members at Augusta National Golf Club. Then again, he was hardly a preservationist on all matters.
Just look at how much the course has changed.
Now, after an eight-year reign that was dominated by those two major issues, Johnson is handing over the home of the Masters to Billy Payne, who improbably brought the Olympics to Atlanta a decade ago.
Augusta National announced Friday that Johnson is stepping down as chairman on May 21, moving into an emeritus role.
Payne will become the sixth chairman in the club’s 73-year history and run one of golf’s most hallowed events – the first of the four majors, played every April amid blazing azaleas and towering pine trees.
Johnson, 75, has run Augusta National since 1998, defiantly turning back demands that women be allowed to join the men’s-only club while ordering up two major overhauls of the historic course to deal with rapidly improving equipment and longer-hitting players.
Earl Woods memorial held
Friends and relatives came to the Tiger Woods Learning Center in Anaheim, Calif., to privately remember Earl Woods, the golf star’s father who died this week after a long battle with prostate cancer.
Earl Woods was best known for the effect he had on his son, who began hitting balls at age 3 after watching as his father practice his swing in the family’s garage. He died Wednesday at his Cypress, Calif., home. He was 74.
Mourners arrived at the memorial and reception after the burial at a cemetery in Cypress. In attendance were former basketball great Charles Barkley, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, Nike chairman Phil Knight, volleyball player and model Gabrielle Reece and her husband, pro surfer Laird Hamilton, among others.
Wie makes cut at men’s event
Michelle Wie, 16, accomplished something in her ancestral homeland she had failed to do in seven previous tries elsewhere: The American teen made the cut at a men’s tournament.
With huge crowds cheering for the player they call “big sister,” Wie was at 5-under-par 139 after two rounds, tied for 17th in the Asian Tour’s SK Telecom Open in Incheon, South Korea. She shot a 3-under 69 in the second round to make the cut by five strokes in a tournament shortened to 54 holes after rain wiped out today’s play.
Wie has played in four PGA Tour events and has competed on the Japan, Nationwide and Canadian tours, missing the 36-hole cut in all seven events.
PGA
Bo Van Pelt broke the 36-hole record in the Wachovia Championship, tying the Quail Hollow course mark in the process with an 8-under 64 in Charlotte, N.C. He had a 10-under 134 total for a three-shot lead over Jim Furyk, with Davis Love III another stroke back. Van Pelt matched the 64 shot by former Pullman resident Kirk Triplett in the first round of the inaugural event in 2003.
LPGA
Angela Stanford used strong iron play to take a one-stroke lead in the Franklin American Mortgage Championship in Franklin, Tenn., shooting a 5-under 67 for a 12-under 132 total on the Vanderbilt Legends Club’s Ironhorse Course.
Wendy Ward (66) of Edwall, Wash., was in a group tied for fourth at 135. Rathdrum’s Tracy Hanson (73) missed the cut at 145.
Champions Tour
Scott Simpson got off to a fast start in his bid for his first Champions Tour win, shooting a 5-under 67 for a share of the lead with Tom McKnight, Keith Fergus and Mark McNulty in the Regions Charity Classic in Hoover, Ala.