Spanish accent
CARNOUSTIE, Scotland – A shank for Sergio Garcia. A duck-hook for Tiger Woods.
Both shots were shocking to see on the opening hole at Carnoustie. The bigger surprise Friday at the British Open was which player recovered – not the guy with 12 majors, but the one seeking his first.
“It was a solid shank,” Garcia said, able to laugh after an even-par 71 put him 6 under for the tournament and gave him a two-shot lead going into the weekend.
His 9-iron skidded into a nasty lie in the rough right of the green, and what followed was a chip that would have made short-game genius Seve Ballesteros proud. It skirted the edge of a bunker and rolled to tap-in range for an unlikely par that brightened Garcia’s mood.
Woods, on the other hand, hit his iron off the tee so poorly that it found the Barry Burn. That’s not unusual at Carnoustie, except the winding stream shouldn’t come into play until the final hole, not the first one.
It was that far left.
He dropped the club right after impact and watched the ball sail over the gallery, hop along the turf and disappear into the burn and out-of-bounds, putting two strokes on his card before he put a ball in play.
“It was such a poor shot because the commitment wasn’t there,” said Woods, who made double bogey on his way to a 3-over 74 that left him seven shots behind in his quest to become the first player in 51 years to win the claret jug three straight times.
“Still not out of it,” Woods said, even though 18 players separated him from the top of the leaderboard.
Garcia took another step toward validating his promise, grinding his way through chilly breezes with birdies on both par 5s and only a couple of mistakes that put him two shots clear of K.J. Choi.
He has contended for majors since he was a teenager, but the 27-year-old Spaniard looks as though he might finally have figured them out. Garcia wasn’t at his best in the second round, but he was good enough.
“I was hoping for a little better than what I did,” Garcia said. “But that was not a bad round.”
The best round of the day belonged to former Masters champion Mike Weir of Canada, a 68 that put him at 3-under 139 along with another Spaniard, Miguel Angel Jimenez, who had a 70.
LPGA
Meaghan Francella knocked off another top-ranked player, beating Lorena Ochoa in the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship at New Rochelle, N.Y.
Francella, an LPGA Tour rookie from nearby Port Chester, thrilled her large, vocal gallery with a 1-up, second-round victory over Ochoa, the Mexican star who won the 2006 Sybase Classic on the Wykagyl Country Club course.
In March in Mexico, Francella beat Annika Sorenstam – then the No. 1 player – on the fourth hole of a playoff to win the MasterCard Classic for her first tour title.
After losing the par-4 14th with a bogey, Francella took the par-4 15th and par-5 16th with pars to take a 1-up lead. They matched pars on the par-3 17th and Francella finished off Ochoa with a conceded birdie on the par-5 18th.
Ochoa dropped out along with No. 3 Sorenstam, No. 5 Se Ri Pak, No. 7 Suzann Pettersen and No. 8 Paula Creamer, leaving No. 10 Mi Hyun Kim as the top remaining seed in the final 16.
PGA
Joe Ogilvie shot a 63 and was the leader at 10-under 130 after two rounds of the U.S. Bank Championship at Brown Deer Park Golf Course in Milwaukee.
First-round co-leader Jeff Maggert shot a 69 and was at 8-under along with Garrett Willis (68). Steve Flesch (64), Tim Clark (65), Tim Herron (67), Billy Mayfair (64), Bob Heintz (64) and Craig Bowden (67) were three strokes behind.