Europe lead U.S. 3-1 after opening Solheim foursomes

 

August 16, 2013

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(Reuters) - With Swedes Anna Nordqvist and Caroline Hedwall setting the tone in the first match, holders Europeseized a 3-1 lead over the United States after Friday morning's opening foursomes at the 13th Solheim Cup in Parker, Colorado.

 The statuesque Nordqvist rolled in a six-foot birdie putt at the par-five 16th to seal a 4&2 win over Women's British Open champion Stacy Lewis and Lizette Salas, earning the first point for Europe on a sunny day at the Colorado Golf Club.

 World number three Suzann Pettersen and Cup rookieBeatriz Recari of Spain followed suit with a 2&1 victory overAmericans Brittany Lang and Angela Stanford, a sizzling putting display by the Norwegian making the difference in a tight match.

Morgan Pressel and Jessica Korda put the first red number on the board for the U.S., beating Catriona Matthew and Jodi Ewart-Shadoff 3&2, before Europe ended a memorable morning with Azahara Munoz and Karine Icher upsetting Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer 2&1.

Former major winners Kerr and Creamer, playing in the anchor match as the most experienced U.S. duo, had not previously lost in three encounters together but were undone as their opponents took control with three successive birdies from the eighth.

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Suzann Pettersen of team Europe celebrates sinking her putt on nine as U.S. player Brittany Lang (R) …

"We just didn't seem to get any momentum right off the bat," said Kerr who is playing in her seventh Solheim Cup.

"We missed a couple of greens and they threw some long bombs at us on eight, nine and 10. We really didn't get the momentum until the last few holes and then it's too late," she said greenside.

PERFECT START

Europe are bidding to win the trophy on American soil for the first time and Nordqvist and Hedwall gave the visitors a perfect start as they dovetailed superbly in the top match.

"We have been playing pretty solid the last couple of weeks and I think we were both very excited," said Nordqvist, 26.

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Paula Creamer (L) and Cristie Kerr of the U.S. team wait on the first tee during the Friday morning  …

"It feels like both our forms are really good. It was just so much fun out there today."

Lewis, who made her Solheim Cup debut two years ago at Killeen Castle in Dunsany, Ireland where Europe beat the U.S. 15-13 to regain the trophy, paid tribute to the Swedish duo.

"They played great," said the 28-year-old Lewis. "They were fairway and green every time.

"It never looked like they were ever going to make bogey. They put a lot of pressure on us.

"We had a couple of putts lip out and not go our way so we've got to go out there this afternoon and really go after it," added Lewis, referring to Friday's fourball matches.

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Paula Creamer (L) and Cristie Kerr of the U.S. team wait on the first tee during the Friday morning  …

Pettersen, a veteran of seven Solheim Cups, was a dominant figure as she and 26-year-old Spaniard Recari outplayed Lang and Stanford in the second match.

"It will be a day that I will never forget," said rookie Recari. "This is just so much bigger than anything you can experience. You don't feel as much pressure as you do here at the Solheim Cup.

"It was great to play with Suzann. She just played amazing today and putted incredibly well. We're just really happy to get another point for Europe."

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Tony Jimenez)

Wyndham's 3rd round to get an early start

August 16, 2013AP - Sports

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Patrick Reed, left, embraces his wife and caddie,Justine Reed, right, after making a birdie putt on …

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) -- With rain in the forecast, the third round of the Wyndham Championship will start early.

PGA Tour rules official Mark Russell said Friday the tee times for Saturday's round will be start between 7 a.m. and roughly 9:30 a.m., depending on how many players make the cut. Players will go off in threesomes starting on both the first and 10th holes.

Russell says planning to finish the round at about 2:30 p.m. gives organizers some wiggle room in case play is delayed.

The National Weather Service calls for an 80 percent chance of rain Saturday and says between one-quarter to one-half an inch of rain is possible.

Obama is eager member of golfing presidents' club

DARLENE SUPERVILLE (Associated Press) August 16, 2013AP - Sports

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP) -- American presidents love golf - 15 of the last 18 have played - and Barack Obama is an eager member of that club.

He's played golf on four of six days since arriving on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard last Saturday. The White House never releases his scores and generally does not allow news coverage of his games - although it did allow the press to watch him briefly once this week.

Tiger Woods played with Obama in Florida last February and said at the time that the left-handed president hits the ball well.

''If he ever spent - after these four years - spent more time playing the game of golf, I'm sure he could get to where he's a pretty good stick,'' Woods said. ''He's got an amazing touch. He can certainly chip and putt.''

Obama's interest in golf dates back to his high school years when he started playing in Hawaii. Later, golf was a pastime during the eight, sometimes frustrating, years he spent as an Illinois senator.

Democrats were the minority party when Obama took his Illinois Senate seat in January 1997. Majority Republicans hardly ever sought them out and paid scant attention to their priorities. So when he had free time, Obama often joined fellow senators and lobbyist friends on golf courses in the state capital of Springfield.

''When you're in the minority you have a lot of time on your hands because nobody is seeking you out for advice or votes,'' said state Sen. Terry Link, who took his seat the same year as Obama. ''So what we did is we decided to start playing golf when the weather broke and we were still down'' in Springfield. They tried to play a couple of times a week, he said.

''We played and worked on his game and eventually he got a little bit better,'' Link said. ''I guess he plays a lot more than he used to or I think he'd like to play a lot more than he could.''

Phil Manning, a lobbyist Obama played with, said ''it was a healthy outlet'' for blowing off steam.

Competitive at athletics, Obama paid for private instruction to help his game, Link said.

Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and moved to Washington. By 2007, he was a candidate for president, winning the race in 2008 and re-election last year.

Being in the White House seems to have deepened Obama's love of the game.

He's has played 137 rounds of golf as president in the past four and a half years, including at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, the Army's Fort Belvoir in Virginia, during family vacations to Hawaii and Martha's Vineyard, and elsewhere, according to meticulous records kept by CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

Many of the presidents who played golf wrestled with the image of themselves playing in front of cameras, according to Don Van Natta's 2003 book, ''First off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers and Cheaters from Taft to Bush.''

George W. Bush quit playing golf in the fall of 2003, after 2 1/2 years in office, saying it was inappropriate for the commander in chief to be seen playing while Americans were fighting and dying in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Golf suffers from its reputation as a sport for the elite - the same perception the Columbia and Harvard-educated Obama has pushed back against throughout his political career.

It's partly for these reasons that White House officials, even former members who've played with Obama, decline to discuss his golf game.

Obama has said the hours he spends walking from hole to hole or driving the golf cart, as he did this week, are special for someone who is always surrounded by a tight knot of armed security personnel and military aides who drive or fly him practically everywhere he goes.

''It is the only time that, for six hours, first of all, that I'm outside, and second of all, you almost feel normal in the sense that you're not in the bubble,'' he told CBS News shortly after taking office in 2009. ''There are a whole bunch of Secret Service guys, but they're sort of in the woods. And when you're up there in the tee box and you're hacking away and hitting some terrible shot and your friends are laughing at you, you know, it feels as though, you know, you're out of the container.''

On Golf Digest's June 2011 list of the top 150 Washington golfers, Obama was tied for 108th place with Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., behind House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Vice President Joe Biden. He was eighth, behind Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, on the magazine's January 2009 ranking of the 15 presidents who played golf.

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Associated Press writer John O'Connor in Springfield, Ill., and Associated Press researchers Monika Mathur and Susan James contributed to this report.

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