Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
CROMWELL, Conn. - Corey Pavin started strong and finished with a flourish for one of the best rounds of his career and a three-stroke lead at the inaugural Buick Championship on Thursday.
Pavin matched his career low with 8-under-par 62 at TPC at River Highlands. It was also a season low for 44-year-old Pavin and the best round in his 12 appearances at the tournament formerly called the Greater Hartford Open.
Pavin has contended in this event several times, especially in the mid 1990s when he finished with a second and third.
Bob Burns and Matt Weibring were second at 5-under 65. Bunched together four strokes behind the leader were Fred Funk, David Peoples, Jerry Kelly, Jason Dufner and Craig Bowden.
Pavin's round was one stroke off the tournament record held by three players: two-time champ Phil Mickelson, Scott Verplank and Kirk Triplett. It also matched the event's best first-round score, set in 2001 by Jonathan Kaye. Pavin's only other 62 came in the 1990 Texas Open, where he was third.
Pavin, the 1995 U.S. Open champ, has just one top-10 finish this season and is looking for his first win since 1996.
LPGA TOUR: Laura Diaz had a run of five straight birdies and was tied for the lead with Jill McGill and Hilary Lunke at 6-under-par 66 after the opening round of the Wachovia LPGA Classic in Kutztown, Pa. Hee-Won Han, coming off a runnerup finish last weekend, birdied five of her first seven holes and got to 7 under before making bogey at Nos. 15 and 16 and dropping into a nine-way tie for fourth at 67. Lorena Ochoa, who earned her first LPGA Tour victory in May and is third on the money list, and rookie Mikaela Parmlid, the 2003 NCAA individual champion out of Southern California, also had 67.
EUROPEAN PGA: Two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen shot 6-under-par 66 at the BMW Open in Nord Eichenried, Germany, for the first-round lead, and Colin Montgomerie was a stroke behind and bolstered his chances of making the Ryder Cup team. At stake are four open berths on the 12-man squad. Also undecided are Bernhard Langer's two captain's picks, for which Montgomerie is a candidate. The Scotsman shared second at 67 with Australia's Peter O'Malley, England's David Lynn and John Daly.
CHAMPIONS TOUR: Jose Maria Canizares birdied his last hole to complete 5-under-par 67 and share the first-round lead with Bruce Summerhays and Vicente Fernandez at the Tradition. Fuzzy Zoeller was one shot back at the Reserve Vineyards and Golf Club in Aloha, Ore., in the fifth and final major of the season on the senior tour.
NORTH FLORIDA SECTION: Jay Overton had his second straight 67 en route to winning his record fourth North Florida PGA Section Championship at the Westin Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor. At 9-under-par 205, Overton won by a record-equaling nine strokes over Tom Garner, who shot 72-214.