Golf-Woods bogeys first hole in U.S. Open third round - Reuters UK
SAN FRANCISCO, June 16 |
SAN FRANCISCO, June 16 (Reuters) - Tiger Woods made a shaky start to the third round of the U.S. Open on Saturday, bogeying the tricky opening hole at the Olympic Club.
The former world number one, bidding to end a four-year title drought in major championships, started the day tied for the lead at one under par with fellow Americans Jim Furyk and David Toms.
But the pacesetting trio all bogeyed the 509-yard first hole to drop back to even.
That left them one stroke clear of a group of four players - Americans Michael Thompson and John Peterson, 2010 champion Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland and Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts.
McDowell, Peterson and Colsaerts all safely parred the first two holes while Thompson, who led after the first round, made a birdie at the first to join the leaders but handed the shot back when he bogeyed the par-three third.
Conditions on the notoriously difficult course were slightly easier in the morning, allowing a handful of early starters to break par, but were expected to get harder in the afternoon once the winds picked up and the greens began to quicken.
American Casey Wittenberg, who teed off five hours before Woods, made an eagle at the seventh hole, then birdied the last two to sign for a three-under 67 to move to five over.
"By the time Tiger and those guys tee off, I think it's going to be a brick," Wittenberg told reporters of the firm and fast-running layout at the Olympic Club.
"There are a lot of front pin placements out there and it's hard to get to those front pin placements when it gets a little crusty in the afternoon.
"I'm sure with the sun being out and everybody walking on those greens it's going to be a challenge." (Editing by Mark Lamport-Stokes)
Pride salvaged for Ireland - O'Driscoll - The Press in York
Pride salvaged for Ireland - O'Driscoll
6:06pm Saturday 16th June 2012 in National Sport News © Press Association 2011
Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll claimed his side restored a large measure of pride, despite suffering a last-minute defeat to New Zealand in Christchurch.
With the scores locked at 19-19 after 79 enthralling minutes, Dan Carter's drop goal had just enough behind it to scrape over Ireland's bar and give the world champions - playing with 14 men at that stage - a 22-19 win.
Ireland's performance was much improved from their 42-10 loss in the first Test, though, and O'Driscoll took heart from that. He said: "We set standards of ourselves and we're trying to be a consistent team. We dipped below those standards last week, individually and collectively."
He added: "The jersey deserved a little bit more from us and we talked about that this week. Trying to restore a bit of that (pride) in the jersey and I think we did manage to do that. We fell at the final hurdle still."
But O'Driscoll admitted it was hard to take solace from running the All Blacks so close.
He added: "It is difficult when you have fought your way back into the game and got level on the board. They were a man down for the last seven or eight minutes.
"It is difficult to take any positives from the performance but I'm sure, when we look back, there will be plenty of them.
"We have another goal for next week and we don't have to finish our season on that (result). We have an opportunity to go to Hamilton and do what, essentially, we failed to do today."
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen said: "We probably shouldn't have won but the composure we showed allowed us to do that. That is the sign of a good team.
"The big thing is that we have beaten an Irish side that has, probably, played as good as they could have. We didn't play great."
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