Newsday (N.Y.): Stricker eagles keep Memorial lead

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

DUBLIN, Ohio -- Steve Stricker had another one of those "how did that happen,'' afternoons Saturday for a second  straight round in the Memorial Tournament, Jack Nicklaus' baby at  his Muirfield Village club in the suburbs of Columbus.

After a hole-in-one on the eighth hole Friday, Stricker knocked in a sand wedge for a 2 on the par-4 second and a short putt for a 3 on the par-5 fifth, which in a stretch of seven holes over two days gave him three eagles.

His front-nine 31 wobbled off to a back-nine 38, but his 69 was good enough for a 12-under par 68-67-69 -- 204 and a three-shot lead over Jonathan Byrd after 54 holes. Matt Kuchar and Brandt Jobe were another  shot back in third.

Tiger Woods isn't here, and Phil  Mickelson barely is. He's tied for 25th, 10 shots back of Stricker, so Byrd was asked if maybe a change is under way in the game in the United States.

"I tell people Tiger has kind of given us a window,'' said Byrd, who won the season's opening event,  the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. "I think Tiger's situation, his injuries,  he would not say he's playing his best, he's giving us some time to get experience and win some tournaments. And it's exciting to see so many guys having a chance. I do think American golf right now has a lot of faces, and for a while, it was just one face.''

Stricker, a more pragmatic sort, disagrees.

"I think it's always going to be Tiger and Phil,'' was Stricker's observation.

"They're the drawing power. They're the guys, the face, I think, of American golf. Not to say we can't jump in there and grab some of that, too. But those guys, they're big time. We just kind of live in their little world.''

So far, they're living large. Of the top 23 players heading into Sunday's final round, all but six are Americans. They include Shaun Micheel, who won the 2003 PGA  Championship, and Dustin Johnson, who  could be this country's next great player.

Luke Donald, the  Englishman who is the new No. 1 in the world rankings, is eight shots back, and  Charl Schwartzel,  the South African who won the Masters, is nine adrift.

The last three majors -- South Africa's Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open; Germany's Martin Kaymer, the 2010  PGA Championship, Schwartzel, this year's Masters -- were won by non-Americans,  causing some distress on this side of the Atlantic.

But Byrd sounded unconcerned. "There's a lot of talented guys out here right now,'' he said. "Guys playing with a lot of confidence, Matt Kuchar and Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson. A ton of  confidence, and they're young."

Stricker, 44, is not so young. He lost his game a few years ago and was voted  Comeback Player of the Year, not once but twice. "I can't believe where I am today,'' he said. "And it's a good thing, because I keep striving to get better.''

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Newsday (N.Y.): After good start, U.S. sputters as Europe roars

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

NEWPORT, Wales -- Team America suddenly looked like Team Bewilderment. The Ryder Cup was being wrenched away. The only thing able to stop Europe on this long day's journey into night was, well, night.

"It's a shame it got dark,'' Luke Donald said. "We would have liked to keep going.''

Donald is an Englishman. Who won the NCAA championship for Northwestern. Who lives and plays in the United States. Who is on the Euro squad.

And his team was leading in all six matches that remained unfinished Saturday as the competition, dissected by a more than a 7-hour delay Friday, was reworked into a format that had golfers going from 9 a.m. to 6:50 p.m., and that still might not be enough.

There are four partnership sessions for the Ryder Cup. Two finished, sort of, and the United States was in front 6 to 4. But six more matches, two foursomes (alternate shot) and four fourballs (better-ball) hadn't finished. Europe is in front in every one of those.

After they conclude Sunday, assuming another storm doesn't rip across south Wales, then the 12 golfers on each team play singles.

"I just wanted to get even at eight points apiece before singles,'' said Colin Montgomerie, the Euro captain. The probability is he'll be ahead.

Eldrick Woods stopped playing like a Tiger. Phil Mickelson hasn't even started to play like Lefty. And Donald, Lee Westwood, Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell have been rolling in putts practically all the way from London, 120 miles to the east.

"Well, momentum is a wonderful thing in Ryder Cups,'' said Colin Montgomerie, the European captain, "and it's evident that momentum clearly is with Europe at the moment, although the [posted] score favors the States.''

In the two foursomes still going, Donald and Westwood were 4 up over Woods and Steve Stricker, and it was 5 up before Stricker got a win on the last hole played, the ninth; and McDowell and Rory McIlroy, the two from Northern Ireland, were 3 up over Zach Johnson and Hunter Mahan through seven.

In fourballs, Harrington and Ross Fisher were 1 up over Jim Furyk-Dustin Johnson through eight; Peter Hanson-Miguel Angel Jimenez 2 up over Bubba Watson-Jeff Overton through six; brothers Edoardo and Francesco Molinari of Italy 1-up over Stewart Cink-Matt Kuchar through five; and Ian Poulter-Martin Kaymer 2 up over Mickelson and Rickie Fowler through four.

"I have not seen points given in matches that were through four, five, six seven holes,'' said Corey Pavin, the U.S. captain, seeking optimism. "We have to try to turn momentum back in our favor.''

But how? The Woods-Stricker twosome was unbeatable in last fall's Presidents Cup in San Francisco. At this Ryder Cup it won both the fourball, which finished Saturday morning and the subsequent foursomes. But it couldn't do a thing in the third match, beginning with the first hole.

"I think Tiger's playing well,'' Pavin said. "Obviously Steve and Tiger didn't get off to a very good start [in the third match]. It happens.''

Mickelson and Dustin Johnson lost both matches, so Pavin split them up -- Mickelson pairing with Fowler, Johnson with Furyk -- for the third, but that wasn't working either.

"Everybody thought it was a pretty good pairing,'' Pavin said of Mickelson-Dustin Johnson. "Just didn't get it going. Why? You've got me. So change it up.''

What changed for Europe was on the greens. Fisher, an Englishman, birdied three, four and five, in his partnership with Harrington, who started off with a birdie.

"I felt there wasn't enough passion on the course,'' Montgomerie said. "It was a very important two hours of play this afternoon. I just felt we needed to get the crowd on our side. The crowd wasn't getting involved enough, because we weren't involving them enough.''

The crowd was into it quickly enough.

And the U.S. team was falling out of it just as quickly.

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Newsday (N.Y.): Ryder Cup: Tiger, Stricker in third pairing for opening round

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

NEWPORT, Wales -- Corey Pavin said he wasn't hoping for anything. He created his opening Ryder Cup pairings not on what the weather might be -- the forecast was for Bethpage bleak -- and not on whom the opponents might be but what he thought was best for the American team.

So Tiger Woods, who in the five previous Ryder Cups he's played has been in the leadoff slot, will be in the third group of fourballs (better-ball) Friday when the 38th Cup begins at Celtic Manor.

Two rookies, Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton, are paired. And Jim Furyk, who won $11.35 million and the FedEx Cup last Sunday, will be on the bench.

Woods and Steve Stricker, an expected pairing, will face Europe's Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher.

After the uproar about 21-year-old Rory McIlroy wanting to challenge Woods, Pavin was asked whether he hoped McIlroy would be in that same third pairing as Woods. "I wasn't hoping for anything,'' said the U.S. captain. "I put Tiger and Steve in that slot just [because] I thought it was a good slot for them.''

The morning lineup was, in order, Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson of the U.S. against Lee Westwood-Martin Kaymer of Europe;Stewart Cink-Matt Kuchar vs. McIlroy and fellow Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell; Woods-Stricker vs. Poulter-Fisher and Watson-Overton vs. Luke Donald-Padraig Harrington.

During the fancy opening ceremonies Thursday afternoon, Pavin forgot to introduce Cink.

Four foursomes (alternate shot) matches, are scheduled for this afternoon. The Americans who were idle in the morning, Furyk,Zach Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Hunter Mahan, will almost certainly be called on to play.

Asked his logic for holding out Furyk in the morning, Pavin joked, "Well, he said he's been tired. He was counting his money, and he's been very tired.''

He also said he wanted Mickelson and Johnson to start off. "Phil likes to get out there and get at it,'' was Pavin's explanation, "andDustin has been chomping at the bit.''

He also seemed oblivious of the forecast of rain which might force officials to allow golfers to lift, clean and place balls on a course already soggy.

"I just wanted to send out guys that I thought were very good at better-ball and send them out. Weather is not a factor," said Pavin.

Pavin's wife, Lisa, sarcastically referred to as "The Captainess,'' was the object of a scornful article in Thursday's, London Daily Telegraph. The author, Oliver Brown called her a "loopy narcissist'' who could trigger an international incident.

She and other wives of players on both teams were, along with their husbands, part of a black-tie gala Wednesday evening at Millennium Stadium in nearby Cardiff that featured Wales natives Catherine Zeta-Jones and Shirley Bassey.

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Newsday (N.Y.): PGA Championship is filled with question marks

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. -- So golf faces the famous cliché used when people in sports don't have a clue what may happen next, to wit, "Now what?''

The 92nd PGA Championship starts today at Whistling Straits, along the western shore of Lake Michigan, an hour's drive from Milwaukee, and at a huge 7,514 yards a place where big drives are needed from the tees.

It's a major championship, the final one every year, but this year with the decline of Tiger Woods and rise of internationals such as Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen and Rory McIlroy, it is shadowed by that question, "Now what?''

Is the game in trouble because television ratings, negatively affected by Tiger's troubles and victories by previously unheralded players, have plummeted?

Is there an American capable of winning, or as in three of the last four majors, starting with Y.E. Yang stunning Woods the final day of the 2009 PGA, does the trophy end up in the hands of someone from Korea, Northern Ireland, South Africa or another country?

Is U.S. Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin being candid when he says, as he did Wednesday, there was no certainty Woods would be on the team. The Golf Channel's Jim Gray, who reported Pavin told him "of course'' Woods be selected, challenged Pavin, stuck a finger in his chest, called him a liar and growled, "You're going down.''

For sure, this is the first time in 13 years a major is being held with Woods in the field and he is not the prohibitive favorite.

After the worst four-round event of his pro career -- the WGC-Bridgestone that ended Sunday with Woods tied for 78th among 80 players -- Tiger is second behind Phil Mickelson in the odds.

Yet Mickelson, who said he is recovering from psoriatic arthritis, also played poorly in the Bridgestone; Lee Westwood, third in the world rankings behind Woods and Mickelson, has withdrawn because of a calf injury; and as far as McDowell, the U.S Open winner, and Oosthuizen, British Open champ, it's rare to win two majors in a calendar year, unless you're Woods or Padraig Harrington.

Steve Stricker, a Wisconsin native, is No. 4 in the world, and said: "You always think you can win a tournament, going into a tournament.'' But he never has won a major.

Pavin won the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. He went to UCLA and was called, in a nickname borrowed from one of the school's Rose Bowl teams, "The Gutty Little Bruin.'' After a contentious news conference involving him and European Ryder captain Colin Montgomerie, he needed the courage.

Gray, emboldened by a Golf Channel statement supporting his report, approached Pavin and wife Lisa, who claims she recorded the exchange on her cell phone.

At one point Gray, who years ago had a memorable faceoff with Pete Rose about Rose's gambling, raised his hand to keep Lisa from intervening. Pavin pushed it away.

After the exchange, Pavin again insisted he never told Gray that Woods was assured of a spot on the team for the Oct. 1-3 matches in Wales. Gray defended his report and said Pavin was being "disingenuous.''

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SF Examiner: Soggy weather deters No. 2 golfer

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

PEBBLE BEACH — So the Royal & Ancient game is finding itself in a royal mess these days. When the stories are not about the elusive Mr. Woods, they are about the suddenly elusive Mr. Stricker, or, dare we ignore the subject, clubs which either are legal or illegal, but definitely are controversial.

Read the full story here.

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