Pettersson in cruise control
He takes early lead at Honda
All those worried about tough greens and high numbers in the Honda Classic must have wondered whether Carl Pettersson played the wrong course at Mirasol.
Pettersson was in the right place yesterday, and conditions could not have been better. The result was a 9-under-par 63, giving him a two-stroke lead and leaving everyone else thankful that PGA Tour officials went easy on them with the way the Sunrise Course at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., was set up.
"It wasn't playing as tough as it could have," Pettersson said. "They've got the pins in slightly easier spots. They could put them in ridiculous places. Glad they didn't."
Mark Hensby, who faced slightly stronger breezes late in the afternoon, birdied four straight holes late in his round for a 65. Steve Flesch, Jesper Parnevik, and Rory Sabbatini were another stroke back.
Sunrise wasn't the pushover that the adjacent Sunset Course was last year, when the cut was a record 6 under and 13 players finished at 20 under or better.
Fred Couples, who predicted Wednesday that 75 would only be a mediocre score if the pins were tucked, shot 30 on his back nine and was in a large group at 68 that included Brad Faxon and Robert Allenby. Davis Love was cruising along at 5 under until he missed the green four straight times, and only got up-and-down from the collection area three times. He wound up with a 69.
"They talk for two to three days about how hard it is, and someone goes and shoot 7 or 8 under," Love said. "It happens all the time."
LPGA -- Jung Yeon Lee matched the second-lowest round in LPGA Tour history, carding a 10-under 60 to take a three-shot lead in the season-opening Welch's/Fry's Championship at Tucson. The 25-year-old South Korean, unaware that she had a chance to match Annika Sorenstam's historic 59, missed a 20-foot birdie putt from the fringe on No. 17 and a 10-footer on the 18th.
Sorenstam's 13-under second-round tour de force at Phoenix's Moon Valley Country Club in 2001 remains the LPGA standard for raw score and score in relation to par. Meg Mallon had a 60 in Tucson last year, the first for the event on the cozy Dell Urich Course.
Karen Stupples opened with a 63, Laura Davies and Seol-An Jeon shot 65s.
European -- Matthew Blackey, Paul Broadhurst, and Pierre Fulke shot 4-under 68s for a share of the first-round lead in the Qatar Masters at Doha. Andrew Oldcorn, Nobuhito Sato, and Martin Wiegele also opened with 68s.
