Associated Press
AKRON, Ohio ó Padraig Harrington feels good enough about his swing to concentrate on his results, and it finally paid off Thursday in the Bridgestone Invitational with a 6-under 64 for a two-shot lead.
Harrington has not won a sanctioned tournament since last year at the PGA Championship, when he became the first European in history to win successive majors in the same season. The Irishman was about the only one not terribly excited.
“There’s no relevance at all,” he said. “It’s just a round of golf.”
It was a good one, though, and it gave him a two-shot lead over Scott Verplank, Tim Clark and Prayad Marksaeng of Thailand.
Tiger Woods kept alive his streak of breaking par in the opening round for the 11th straight time at Firestone, where he is going for his seventh victory on the tree-lined course. He didn’t do anything special in his round of 68.
Phil Mickelson got off to a rough start in his return to the PGA Tour. He played bogey-free on his back nine and picked up three birdies to salvage a round of even-par 70. Mickelson has been more focused on his family. His wife and mother are battling breast cancer, although they are progressing enough that he could return to golf.
U.S. Women’s AmateurST. LOUIS (AP) ó Teen stars Alexis Thompson and Jessica Korda advanced to the U.S. Women’s Amateur quarterfinals, winning second- and third-round matches at Old Warson.
The 14-year-old Thompson, the 2008 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion from Coral Springs, Fla., had a pair of 2-and-1 victories, beating England’s Jodi Ewart in the morning and returning to top the Philippines’ Cyna Marie Rodriguez.
Korda ó with her father, former tennis star Petr Korda, working as her caddie ó beat Aimee Neff of Carmel, Ind., 6 and 5, and Erynne Lee of Silverdale, Wash., 2 and 1.
The 16-year-old Korda, from Bradenton, Fla., will face Tiffany Lua of Rowland Heights, Calif., in the quarterfinals, while Thompson will play South Korea’s Han Jungeun. In the other quarterfinals, Jennifer Johnson of La Quinta, Calif., will face Candace Schepperle of Birmingham, Ala., and Stephanie Kono of Honolulu, Hawaii, will play Jennifer Song, the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links winner from Ann Arbor, Mich.