Saturday, November
2, 2002
Charles
in charge at Tour Championship
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
ATLANTA (AP) - The
cold, swirling wind at East Lake wasn't strong enough to blow
away 153-pound Charles Howell III. It only reminded him that something
around par wouldn't be such a bad score Friday in the Tour Championship.
Howell wound up one
stroke better _ a 69 _ and one stroke ahead of David Toms, Steve
Lowery, Len Mattiace and Vijay Singh.
Despite making two
bogeys with a wedge in his hand from the fairway, Howell finished
with eight straight pars and grabbed a one-stroke lead in the
season-ending tournament for the top 30 players on the money list.
"If I make two
pars there I'm 7 under,which looks a little bit different than
5 (under)," Howell said after playing two rounds in 135.
"Obviously, birdies were hard to come by. Every time I made
a birdie, I tried to hang on as much as I could."
Mattiace was hanging
on for dear life at the end of his round.
He was tied for the
lead on the par-3 18th when he hit a 3-wood into the bunker, followed
by a sand iron that looked like it might go nearly as far.
Mattiace caught the
bunker shot thin and it sailed over the green and momentarily
out of sight. The ball clanged off the top of the corporate tents
surrounding the 18th green and caromed back to the short grass
leading up to the green, 15 yards from where he started.
He got up-and-down
from 85 feet to save his bogey and wound up with a 68. No telling
what would have happened without those corporate tents.
"In a way, I
got very lucky," Mattiace said.
He was due. This
is the guy who took an 8 on the island-green 17th hole at The
Players Championship three years ago in the final round.
Toms had the best
score of the day, a bogey-free 66 and earned a spot in the final
twosome with Howell on Saturday. The former PGA champion has been
playing as well as anyone lately, but can't seem to get a win
for all his great scoring _ 47-under par in the last two tournaments.
"I'm pleased
with the way my game is," Toms said. "If I can hang
in there when I hit bad shots and recover like I did today, I'll
be fine."
Tiger Woods is hanging
around, too.
Despite consecutive
bogeys at the turn, Woods finished with a 68 and was at 139, just
four strokes out of the lead.
The worst of his
round was on the par-5 ninth, when he hit a bunker shot over the
green, putted with his 3-wood about 15 feet past the hole and
walked off with one of only six bogeys on that hole Friday.
"I wanted to
get under par," he said. "To end up under par, I'm right
in the ball game."
Join the crowd.
Nineteen players
were within six strokes of the lead going into the weekend, and
except for Rocco Mediate (7 over), only 10 shots separated top
to bottom.
Some of that is East
Lake, which has thick rough with plenty of muscle and slick greens
with ridges and subtle contours that make it difficult to get
close to the hole.
Most of it is the
wind.
"When it's windy
like this, it's really hard to go low," Woods said. "When
you're near the lead, in conditions like this you're not going
to try to take chances."
Lowery had a 71,
while Singh birdied the 232-yard closing hole for the second straight
day to finish at 71 and wind up one stroke out of the lead.
"I just tried
to be very patient," Singh said. "I know it's a four-day
tournament, and even three or four shots off the lead is not going
to be that bad. Luckily, I'm one off."
Chris DiMarco bogeyed
his final two holes for a 68 and was in the group at 138 that
included Retief Goosen (69) and Fred Funk (71).
After three weeks
of low scoring on the PGA Tour, the final official tournament
of the year more closely resembles a U.S. Open, which always puts
a premium on par.
East Lake is playing
exceptionally long because of the muddy fairways _ lift, clean
and place was in effect for the second straight day _ and temperatures
that peaked at 60, which felt even colder in the wind.
"We were hitting
woods on some of those par-4s," Lowery said. "It's probably
a two-club difference. And the greens were soft and backing up,
so you have to try to fly it long and spin it back."
Howell's goal at
the start of the year was to get into the Tour Championship. He
made that a higher priority than winning his first tournament.
He came to East Lake having accomplished both, a winner in the
Michelob Championship.
He's making the most
of the occasion.
Howell held his round
together around the turn, holing a 12-foot par putt on No. 8,
making a 20-footer from the fringe for birdie on 9, then following
a bogey on 10 with two more par saves.
He still is only
halfway home to a $900,000 prize and a victory against the best
players of the year, but Howell is starting to look like he belongs.
"I believe that
I can win it," he said. "Will I? I don't know. There's
still 36 more holes left. If I don't, it won't be for lack of
effort."
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