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Thursday, August 9, 2007

Daly leads PGA; Woods four back

Tulsa, OK (Sports Network) - John Daly fired a three-under 67 on Thursday to take the lead during the first round of the PGA Championship at a sweltering Southern Hills Country Club.
Temperatures reached over 100 degrees already at Southern Hills, host of the 2001 U.S. Open. The weather is expected to be the same all week, so empty water bottles will be the norm.
Daly, the surprise 1991 winner who was the ninth alternate to start that week, has not had a good year thus far. He has no status on the PGA Tour and, in limited exemptions, has posted zero top 10s. Daly has 17 events under his belt, with five made cuts and four withdrawals.
"I've been putting too much pressure on myself," acknowledged Daly. "Being hurt doesn't help. I haven't really played that bad. I just haven't been able to score. If you can't score, you don't have any confidence."
World No. 1 and defending champion Tiger Woods is in search of his first major of the year. He opened with a one-over 71, which is disappointing considering he flew out of the gate.
He started on the 10th tee Thursday and knocked his approach at 10 to seven feet. Woods drained that putt, and added birdies at 13 and 15 to join the lead at minus-three.
Woods dropped a shot at the 18th when he could not save par from a bunker. That kick-started a run of bad golf which saw Woods bogey two and four. He made birdie at the par-five fifth, but fell back to even-par with a bogey at seven.
At the 245-yard, par-three eighth, Woods came up short with his tee ball. He chipped to 10 feet, but missed the par save. Woods rolled in a three-footer at No. 9 to stay at one-over par.
"I felt like I hit the ball better than my score indicates, which is good," said Woods, who won last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational by eight. "That's a good sign heading into the next three days."
The last season Woods failed to win a major was 2004. Since his breakout victory at the 1997 Masters, Woods has only had three seasons without one of golf's big four in his trophy case.
England's Graeme Storm is also three-under par on the course.
Arron Oberholser shot a two-under 68 with several players still on the course at that number.
Mark Wilson, Markus Brier, Camilo Villegas, Lee Westwood and 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy are in the clubhouse at one-under-par 69.
They are all looking up at Daly, who turned heads in the golf world earlier this season.
During the second round of the St. Jude Championship in early June, Daly showed up with scratch marks on his cheeks. He told authorities his wife attacked him while he was asleep.
The next time Daly surfaced was last month at the British Open Championship, a tournament he won in 1995. Daly took the lead with a chip-in eagle on Thursday, then exploded and missed the cut.
On Thursday, Daly was able to finish off his round.
Daly recorded birdies at four, seven and nine, with the last birdie coming from 10 feet. At the par-five 13th, Daly ran his 25-foot eagle putt three feet by the hole. Daly converted that birdie putt to make it to four-under par.
At the 507-yard, par-four 16th, Daly hit a poor second shot en route to a bogey. That dropped him to minus-three, but the 1991 champion hung on with pars at the last two for his spot on the leaderboard.
Daly thinks he might know the key to his success on Thursday. "At the British, I played three practice rounds. Grinding, grinding, grinding," said Daly. "I came here and said I'm just goin

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