Defending champion Peter Lonard didn’t quite look the part yesterday, just a day ahead of the start of the Australian PGA Championship, hanging around the front of the clubhouse barefoot, in T-shirt and shorts.
“Just on my way back from the gym — honest,” Lonard said. “I’m not playing the pro-am till the afternoon, so I thought I’d better get serious about a workout.”
Lonard has won the Australian PGA title at Coolum three times in the last six years — sharing the championship with Australian countryman Jarrod Moseley in 2002 when darkness ended a playoff, in 2004 and last year, all of them on the par-72 Hyatt Regency resort course on Queensland state’s Sunshine Coast.
Why he plays so well here is a mystery to him, based mostly on his lack of preparation.
“It’s just a pretty relaxed sort of atmosphere,” Lonard said. “It’s a great place to stay and I usually have a few friends hanging around. I probably do everything wrong — I barely go to the gym, I eat pizza, drink beer and don’t really think much about golf. Maybe I should do that all year.”
The 41-year-old Lonard’s only win on the US PGA tour came at the 2005 MCI Heritage, and his best finish this year was a second at the Zurich Classic at New Orleans. Last year, a final-round 65 gave Lonard the win at Coolum, his ninth in Australia.
Lonard and a field that includes American John Daly, South African Tim Clark, Robert Allenby and last week’s Australian Masters champion Rod Pampling will find a vastly different course when play begins Thursday. Recent heavy rainfall has left the greens slower than usual, fairways with less run and the creeks full.
“With the rain we’ve had and the washouts, on four, five seven, eight, there is water right to the edge,” Pampling said. “You can be as aggressive as you like with this course, but be prepared to drop shots if you don’t hit the fairways.”
Allenby nearly joined his compatriot Adam Scott — who withdrew on Monday because of a surfing-related right knee injury — on the sidelines this week. Allenby, who was in contention at the Masters at Huntingdale last week until a late double-bogey — considered staying at home with his ailing mother, Sylvia, who has stopped all treatment for lung and kidney cancer.
“I didn’t think I was ready, mentally and emotionally, to play this week,” Allenby said yesterday. “But I spoke to my mom on Tuesday morning and she said: ‘I’d love you to win the tournament, but if you don’t, don’t worry about it.’”
“It’s a pretty tough time for all of us. We’re a close family, I’m the youngest of four and we’ve never had to go through this before,” he said. “We know what’s going to happen.”
Daly is making his first appearance at Coolum since 2002, when he threw his putter and ball into the pond on the 18th hole after his second round. He was later disqualified for not signing his scorecard.
The 42-year-old Daly missed the cut at last week’s Australian Masters but had a final-round 62 at the Hong Kong Open and tied for 17th the week before. He’s also playing next week’s Australian Open at Royal Sydney.
■NEDBANK CHALLENGE
AFP, SUN CITY, SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa’s Trevor Immelman makes his first appearance in his home country since winning the US Masters when he defends his title in the Nedbank Challenge limited field tournament at the Gary Player Country Club starting today.
Immelman, 28, won the event last year after receiving a late invitation. But less than two weeks later he had to withdraw from the South African Open because of a benign lung tumor which required surgery.
Four months later he held off Tiger Woods and the rest of the world’s top golfers at the Masters, holding or sharing the lead through all four rounds in brutally tough conditions.
He hasn’t had a win since and in recent magazine interviews admitted that he found it difficult to lift his game to the same level in the months that followed.
“There were many different things that I had to find time to deal with and learn how to handle them,” he told the South African edition of Golf Digest. “Probably for the first time in my life — and my career — I let golf slip down my priority list.”
Favorite for the US$1.2 million first prize is Spain’s Sergio Garcia, whose recent good form has lifted him to No. 2 in the world rankings.
Other strong contenders will include Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson, who combined to win the World Cup for Sweden in China on Sunday.
Stenson has finished second and fourth in two previous appearances at Sun City but world No. 6 Karlsson will be playing in the tournament for the first time. The 12 invited players are guaranteed a minimum of US$200,000 in prize money but this year’s field lacks some of the glamour of previous years, although eight of the world’s top 20 will be teeing up.
The New Taipei Kings claimed the inaugural Taiwan Professional Basketball League (TPBL) championship on Sunday, defeating the Kaohsiung FamilyMart Aquas 108-89 in the final. Playing at home, the Kings pulled ahead with Jeremy Lin’s (林書豪) clutch three-pointers, securing their victory over the Aquas in the TPBL final. The Kings came out strong in the first quarter, dominating to build a 35-18 lead. By halftime, they had stretched their advantage to 61-38. In the third quarter, the Aquas narrowed the deficit to 12 points, but Lin stepped up, sinking several tough three- pointers to extend the lead. In the final quarter, the Kings pushed the
In an unlikely Ethiopian outpost of one the most French of pastimes, four men are leaning over their petanque balls, arguing over who is winning. Petanque, the bowling game also known as boules, is more readily associated with French village squares where locals launch metal balls at a jack while enjoying an afternoon drink, but for decades, it has also been a beloved pastime for members of a club near the iconic Meskel Square in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. It was founded in the early 20th century to cater to French railway workers, who built a line connecting Addis Ababa
Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Australian teenager Maya Joint on Tuesday eased into the Eastbourne Open quarter-finals in England as Hsieh prepares for the Wimbledon Championships next week. Four-time Wimbledon women’s doubles champion Hsieh and 19-year-old Joint fired two aces and converted five of eight break points to defeat Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Poland’s Katarzyna Piter 6-3, 6-3 in 58 minutes on the grass court. Hsieh and Joint are today to face fourth seeds Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who advanced on Monday with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Quinn Gleason of the US and
BEAT THE HEAT: A brutal heat wave in the US has made cooling breaks standard. Dortmund’s coach said the weather could shape the destiny of the tournament Chelsea on Tuesday beat Esperance of Tunisia 3-0 to set up a FIFA Club World Cup last-16 tie against SL Benfica, who earlier defeated Bayern Munich 1-0, as furnace-link heat and the threat of thunder and lightning wreak havoc at the tournament. Elsewhere, minnows Auckland City claimed a memorable draw against Boca Juniors, while Los Angeles bowed out of the tournament with a stalemate against Flamengo. In Charlotte, Andreas Schjelderup scored the only goal for Benfica in their Group C clash with Bayern in front of 33,287 fans, finishing first-time from a cutback by his fellow Norwegian Fredrik Aursnes in the 13th