Dudley Hart faced his greatest fears last summer when doctors found a softball-sized lump on his wife's lung, and he was off the PGA Tour the last half of the season to care for their triplets while she recovered.
All things considered, staring down Vijay Singh in the final round at Pebble Beach no longer seems very intimidating.
Hart, who hasn't been in serious contention in a tournament in nearly four years, finally got the better of Spyglass Hill yesterday with a bogey-free round of 4-under-par 68 for a share of the lead with Singh at the AT&T Pebble Beach (Calif.) National Pro-Am.
Singh made an eagle on the par-5 12th at Spyglass on his way to a 67 to join Hart at 9-under 207, the highest score to lead after 54 holes at Pebble Beach since 1990.
They were two shots ahead of PGA Tour rookie Dustin Johnson and Michael Allen.
Defending champion Phil Mickelson lost all hope of being the first repeat winner at Pebble since Mark O'Meara in 1989-90 when he took an 11 on the par-5 14th and went from trying to stay in contention to missing the cut.
Mickelson tried to cut the corner on the 585-yard 14th by playing right of the bunker at the dogleg. From a decent lie in the rough, he decided to hit a hybrid to just short of the green, which would leave him a pitch shot with his 64-degree wedge.
But the hybrid didn't work out - twice.
"It ended up shooting right on me and went out of bounds," Mickelson said. "And then I did it again."
He finally opted to hit 5-iron to the fairway for his sixth shot, then his wedge spun off the green, down the slope, and into a muddy, sloppy lie under a tree. His eighth shot made it halfway up the hill, he chipped that on to 15 feet, and two-putted for an 11.
He finished his round by taking an aggressive line off the 18th tee, but it went left and into the surf crashing below the fairway. That gave him a 78, which wasn't his worst score at one of his favorite courses. Mickelson closed with an 80 five years ago at Pebble Beach.
Hart being atop the leaderboard is surprising.
He has not had a share of the lead since the 1996 Canadian Open, which he went on to win for the first of his two victories. And he is still trying to get back into a rhythm of Tour life after a summer of uncertainty involving wife Suzanne, who had two-thirds of her right lung removed but is getting back to normal.
"It opens your eyes to what's truly important sometimes," Hart said. "I think we all take for granted what we have, whatever we're doing, and take our health for granted.
"It definitely scared me. I kept looking at those kids and I can't imagine. God forbid, when they get that tumor out, it comes back bad and they don't have their mom around. That, fortunately, wasn't the issue."
Champions - Jerry Pate moved into position for his second straight victory, shooting a 5-under 67 to take a one-stroke lead over Scott Hoch (67) after the second round of the
Pate, the Turtle Bay Championship winner two weeks ago in Hawaii, had an 11-under 133 total on The Old Course at Broken Sound.
He eagled the par-4 13th, holing a sand wedge from 95 yards. The ball landed about a foot past the cup, jumped another 2 or 3 feet, and spun back into the hole.
"That was exciting," Pate said.
John Cook (66), Bruce Lietzke (65), Mark McNulty (69), and Bobby Wadkins (68) were two shots back at 9 under, and defending champion Mark James (66) was 8 under along with Eduardo Romero (67), Jim Thorpe (67), and Ben Crenshaw (68).
European - Raphael Jacquelin shot par 72 in windy conditions to take a one-stroke lead over Damien McGrane (75), Jose Manuel Lara (71), and Graeme McDowell (73) after three rounds of the Indian Masters in New Delhi.
An eagle on the 14th hole helped Jacquelin overcome three bogeys for a 6-under 210 total at the Delhi Golf Club.
Ernie Els shot a 69, good for a six-way tie for 10th.
European Ladies - Six-time champion Karrie Webb made a 16-foot birdie putt on 18 for a 7-under 65 and a share of the lead at 136 with fellow Australian Tamie Durdin (67) and South Korean Shin Hyun Ju (68) in the ANZ Australian Ladies Masters in Gold Coast.
Seven players were two shots off the lead, including South Dennis native Carri Wood (69) and former Duke player and 2002 NCAA champion Virada Nirapathpongporn (69).
