Golf Capsules: Woods and Kim tied for lead at Congressional

BETHESDA, Md. - Anthony Kim finally gets a crack at Tiger Woods, and when he says he has been practicing for a moment like this all his life, Kim isn't kidding.

As a 10-year-old growing up in Los Angeles, in those final hours of twilight as he waited for his father to pick up from the golf course, Kim imagined he was in the final pairing with Woods and had a 10-foot putt for the victory, with the world's No. 1 player watching.

"Man, they were going in a lot," Kim said, laughing.

He can only hope fantasy meets reality Sunday in the AT&T National.

Kim kept his cool after a couple of blunders at Congressional, saving par from 84 yards with a creative chip he had been too scared to try in competition, then making birdie on the 16th that led to a 2-under 68 and his name atop the leaderboard.

Woods, having lost a three-shot lead in a span of two holes with a double bogey on the 11th, found one last birdie with a putt up the slope of the 16th green to tap-in range that allowed him to salvage a roller-coaster round at 70.

That gave him a share of the lead with Kim at 10-under 210, and gave Congressional a Sunday showdown a bustling gallery has been craving since the tournament began Thursday.

Woods is tournament host. Kim is the defending champion.

Woods is the guy who made golf cool, a multiracial talent who shattered records during his rise to No. 1. Kim is perfecting cool, a bundle of energy at 24 who practices with music blaring from his iPod.

They are separated by just under 10 years, but this generation gap seems wider than that. Woods also grew up in Southern California, and he often stayed late on the practice green dreaming of the putt to win a major.

And who was he trying to beat?

Jack Nicklaus. Arnold Palmer. Ben Hogan. Sam Snead.

Told about Kim's tale of trying to beat him, Woods offered a wry smile.

"I'm aging," he said. "That's what that means."

But he has been around long enough to have built a 45-3 record on the PGA Tour when he has at least a share of the 54-hole lead, a statistic that has defined why it's so tough to beat him.

Kim is only thankful for the chance. He has never played in the same pairing with Woods, nor has Kim ever finished higher than Woods in any of the tournaments they have played since Kim joined the PGA Tour three years ago.

But the kid has an idea what he'll see.

"I expect he's going to be wearing a red shirt and be out there ready to go," Kim said. "And I'll be ready, as well."

They both would do well do look over their shoulders, for this is far from a two-man race.

Michael Allen, who is 0-for-336 in his PGA Tour career but undefeated on the Champions Tour when he won the Senior PGA Championship earlier this year, made seven birdies in a round of 65, the best score Saturday.

Allen turned 50 in January and ventured out to play against men his own age only once, winning at Canterbury at a senior major. He has won on the Nationwide Tour, the PGA European Tour and the Champions Tour.

This one would be the most meaningful.

"It would be a culmination of what I've always been try to do," Allen said. "And champagne for everybody."

He was at 9-under 201 with Cameron Beckman, who chipped in for eagle on the par-5 16th for a 66.

A dozen players were separated by four shots going into the final round, including Jim Furyk (69) and Rod Pampling (71) at 8-under 202, and U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover (68) another shot behind.

Woods had a one-shot lead over Pampling, an advantage that was gone after the opening hole when Woods drove into the gallery and couldn't reach the green out of the thick rough, a sign of a struggles that would last most of the warm, blustery day before an enormous gallery that was as energetic as any for a non-major this year.

He recovered with a 3-iron to 25 feet, and a leaning fist pump when the eagle putt fell, giving Woods a three-shot lead.

Then came the 11th hole, which has given Woods fits this week. From the left rough, he hit into a bunker some 50 yards short of the green, caught that shot too heavy and slammed his club when it tumbled into another bunker. Woods blasted out to 7 feet, then missed the putt to make double bogey. He has played that hole in 4-over par for the week.

This one cost him the lead.

He didn't make any mistakes coming in, although he didn't give himself hardly any birdie chances except for the par-5 16th.

"It was a tough day," Woods said. "One of those things you just had to grind it out and get through it. There were a lot of lag putts. I just never had a whole lot of birdie chances."

Woods might need some Sunday playing with Kim, an explosive player who is regarded as the next American star the way he won last year at Quail Hollow and Congressional, then energized the U.S. team in a Ryder Cup victory.

"I'm excited to be there," he said, and it was evident the way he leaned into the microphone and smiled. "I'm excited for the opportunity. There's not too many chances you get to play against the best in the world at his golf tournament. I've won this tournament before, and I don't see why I won't have a good opportunity tomorrow."

He won last year with a 65 in the final round, and when he made the final putt for the victory, Woods was watching - from his couch in Florida, recovering from knee surgery.

"On TV," Kim said. "He was in a different state, which was weird. But he was watching. I would love to play great tomorrow."

Notebook: Hitting stride at 50, Allen in contention at AT&T

WASHINGTON - With a lifetime record of 0-for-336 on the PGA Tour, Michael Allen is certainly due.

Allen put himself into contention at the AT&T National on Saturday with a third-round 65. He was at 9-under 201 for the tournament, only one shot behind leaders Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim.

"I've worked hard at my game for 20 years now, 25 years," Allen said. "And it's about time it's started paying off."

Allen, who turned 50 in January, had a rare taste of victory last month when he won the Senior PGA Championship in his Champions Tour debut. Before that, his only significant wins were distant memories: the 1989 Scottish Open on the European tour and the 1998 Greater Austin Open on the Nationwide Tour.

He also had a decent showing last week, finishing 14th at the Travelers Championship.

"I'm aging well," Allen said. "For me that's always been my goal until I really feel like I can't play out here - I want to compete against the best players in the world, and this is where they're at, and this is where I like playing."

For a while, he was hardly playing anywhere. Allen gave up the tour life for a while in the late 1990s and worked in the home construction business and as a teaching pro. He was interviewing to work at Donald Trump's course in Bedminster, N.J., in 2001 - and was expecting to get the job - when he gave Q-school another shot and regained his PGA Tour card.

"I ended up called them up and saying, ‘You're fired. I'm not going to do this."' Allen said.

Now he has a shot at winning the tournament hosted by the top player in the world. For comparison's sake: Woods has earned 31 paychecks of $1 million or more in his PGA Tour career; Allen has cracked the $1 million mark for an entire season only once.

"That would be just what I've always wanted to do, to beat the best player in the world and to come out on a great golf course like this, not just a birdie fest," Allen said. "That would certainly validate that everything I've worked on for the last four or five years are legitimate, that personally I can handle the emotions of playing against the best players and controlling myself."

TIGER'S UNLUCKY NUMBER

If it weren't for the 11th hole, Tiger Woods would have a comfortable lead at his own tournament.

Woods is 4 over at the 489-yard, par-4 hole through the first three rounds, the victim of all sorts of calamities. On Friday, his sand shot hit the lip of the bunker on the way out, and on Saturday he found himself in two different traps on the left side of the green.

"The first day I drove it right in the middle of the fairway and made bogey," Woods said. "Yesterday I drove it in the right bunker and made bogey, and today I drove it from the left hill and made double."

So what's in store for Sunday?

"Tomorrow I'll probably hit wedge off the tee," Woods said with a laugh. "And then I'll hit 3-wood and then hit a 5-iron on there, whatever."

STAR-SPANGLED PINS

The American flag, as most everyone knows, should never touch the ground. That made things a bit tricky for the caddies Saturday.

For the Fourth of July, the Blue Course at Congressional replaced the usual flag with the hole's number with a miniature Old Glory atop the pin at every hole.

"I was definitely more careful," said Mark Carens, who carried the bag for James Driscoll. "You definitely thought about it more than you normally do."

Inevitably, there were going to be mishaps. Bill Harke, the caddie for Peter Lonard, reacted quickly when he accidentally dropped the pin on the 15th green.

"It just slipped out of my hand and hit the ground," Harke said. "It wasn't on the ground long. I knew it was bound to happen - it was going to let one hit the ground."

NOT YOUR EVERYDAY DUO

The 1:10 p.m. pairing featured the U.S. Open champion and the U.S. Amateur champion, and they nearly matched each other stroke-for-stroke.

Lucas Glover, who took the Open title this month at Bethpage, finally pulled ahead of Amateur winner Danny Lee with a 19-foot birdie putt at No. 17. Glover's 68 and Lee's 69 kept them both in the top 10 on a tight leaderboard.

"Lucas is such a great guy and really nice and really relaxed, and he just talked like my friend and was really nice to me," Lee said. "He played awesome, too. I think we both played awesome today."

-- Joseph White

Should Tiger save the world or just save par?

Tiger Woods has a lot on his mind these days. For the first time in four years he's not holding a major title, and soon he'll head across the ocean to play the British Open on a course he's never seen.

For most of this week he's been preoccupied with a tournament he helped found and serves as the host. Odds are on Sunday he'll stand on the 18th green and present himself the winner's check.

Trying to be the greatest golfer ever is a tough business. There's no room for mistakes and, with each passing major championship, it becomes more difficult, at least statistically, to pass the record of 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus.

The reason why Woods even has a chance is that he's so focused, so single-minded. He doesn't just play golf, he works at it.

He lost a shot at the U.S. Open because he couldn't make any putts. He's making almost everything he looks at this week, but only because he spent countless hours in between refining his stroke on the putting green.

Former football great Jim Brown surely appreciates that. He didn't become the player he was by taking shortcuts, either.

What Brown doesn't appreciate is that Woods doesn't seem to be burdened by much of a social conscience. He thinks Woods should be doing more - far more - than just playing golf and making money.

He believes that Woods' quest for greatness comes with a responsibility the greats take on.

"You know what's so interesting about Tiger to me?" Brown said. "He is a killer, he will run over you. ... But as an individual for social change? Terrible. Terrible. Because he can get away with teaching kids to play golf, and that's his contribution."

Brown made the comments last week on HBO's "Real Sports," and Woods wasn't his only target. He didn't name the other, but you can be pretty sure his initials are MJ and he used to play basketball for the Chicago Bulls.

"There are one or two individuals in this country that are black that have been put in front of us as an example," he told host Bryant Gumbel. "But they're basically under a system that says, hey, they're not going to deal with certain things. Yes, that disappoints me because I know they both know better."

Brown isn't the first to be miffed at Woods for not doing more for others. Martha Burk wasn't very happy with him when she tried to force Augusta National to admit women members, and the response from Woods was that it was a private club and, hey, there was nothing he could do about it.

Like Woods, Brown was a minority trailblazer in sports. Unlike Woods, he was socially active in the turbulent 1960s and still works to control gang violence.

But the urgency felt by a black man from a generation that grew up being forced to use separate drinking fountains and ride in the back of the bus throughout the South to speak out about change isn't felt by a black man whose devotion to golf is matched seemingly only by his devotion to make as much money as humanly possible.

Indeed, with a person of mixed heritage much like himself running for president, Woods wouldn't even publicly endorse Barack Obama. He never gave his reasons - who knows, he might have liked John McCain - but the fact Buick was paying him $8 million a year and Republicans tend to buy Buicks might have something to do with it.

Jordan had a similar reaction when asked to intervene with a photo op on behalf of a black Senate candidate in North Carolina in the 1990s. He declined, saying "Republicans buy sneakers, too."

Woods defended himself this week, saying his Tiger Woods Foundation has done good things for lots of children and that he plans to be involved in charitable activities for years to come. That's true, though it doesn't obscure the fact that Woods goes out of his way not to take stands on any issue that might generate controversy,

Contrast that to Muhammad Ali, who lost three years of his career for taking a stand against the draft during the Vietnam War. Or Curt Flood, whose career basically ended when he stood up against the right of baseball owners to treat players like cattle.

Times have changed, and the issues are now different. Things like the lack of women members at Augusta National just don't seem so important compared to societal changes of the past, though if the club was still excluding blacks like it did in the past it surely would have been different for Woods.

So Woods treads carefully and goes on with his quest to become the greatest golfer ever. That's not going to change, and it's not likely Brown's slap on the wrist will suddenly prompt him to begin speaking from his bully pulpit.

Because while Brown may want him to save the world, Woods seems more concerned with just trying to save par.

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org.

Yi leads Farr by 4 after 61

SYLVANIA, Ohio - No one was more surprised to find Eunjung Yi leading the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic through three rounds than, well, Eunjung Yi.

"I'm the leader?" she repeated, incredulous, when asked how it felt to be leading the pack. "Really? I didn't know that. By four strokes?"

She was apparently so into just taking care of the shot in front of her, it never dawned on Yi that she was running away with the Farr.

She recorded eight birdies and an eagle in a 10-under 61 to build a four-shot lead Saturday over Song-Hee Kim (64) and Morgan Pressel (67).

The 21-year-old Yi, who has never finished better than a tie for 11th in her 23 LPGA Tour events, was at 18-under 195 after putting up the lowest third-round score in the tournament's 25 years.

"I like this course. I can shoot very good," she said, disdaining a translator. "We have more holes tomorrow. I'll stay focused."

Yi grew up in South Korea but now spends summers at a rambling 9-bedroom, 4½-bath home in the San Diego area with her father, mother, two brothers and a sister - who joined her in the States two years ago. Her father runs a Korean restaurant.

"If I win, my dad will give everyone a free meal," she said with a laugh.

After starting the day tied for seventh and three shots back of Sarah Kemp and Laura Diaz, Yi birdied four holes on the front side and then started the back by holing a 110-yard pitching wedge from the fairway for eagle.

"I thought it was a little short but it went in the hole," she said.

The eagle was nothing new for Yi, who wears a knee brace on her left leg. Playing in the Corning Classic earlier this season, she eagled the first, second and fifth holes on the way to a 3-under 69, becoming the fifth LPGA player to collect three eagles in the same round.

Continuing to pour it on, she had birdies at holes 12, 13, 16 and 17 - and barely missed a couple of other birdie putts. She could have matched defending champion Paula Creamer's course- and tournament-record 60 set in last year's first round but her 5-foot birdie putt on the closing par-5 lipped out.

The previous low third-round score was Karrie Webb's 62 a year ago.

Yi, never known for her putting, needed just 22 putts to break her previous scoring low on tour by five strokes.

"My putting is always bad, but today was different," said Yi, who earned a spot in her first Women's British Open during qualifying over the opening 36 holes of the Farr.

Like many of the South Koreans on the LPGA Tour, she picked up golf in earnest after seeing fellow countrywoman Se Ri Pak rocket to stardom in the U.S. Yi said the turning point for her was Pak's win at the U.S. Women's Open in 1998 at Blackwolf Run.

She also has noticed Pak's five victories at the Farr. As well as one of the small but meaningful benefits that come with a victory at the tournament - having the street outside Highland Meadows Golf Club named after the winner.

"I want my name on the street, too," she said with a smile.

The highlight of Kim's round was an eagle at the 17th that helped her pick up her second 64 of the week.

"I didn't have any bogeys today," she said. "It was a very clean round."

Pressel, seeking her third career win and first of the year, also avoided any bogeys. She played steadily throughout, continually burning the edges of the hole on birdie putts. She figured she was one of many who could still take the $210,000 first-place check.

"There are more people than just me who have a chance (to win)," she said. "We've seen that three days in a row, where someone has gone crazy and made a lot of putts."

Sweden's Mikaela Parmalid, who teed off more than 4 hours before the last group, shot a 62 to jump from a tie for 54th through 36 holes to the lead by herself until she was caught and passed by Yi.

Parmalid was at 12-under along with the world's No. 2 player, Yani Tseng (65), Kemp (70), Shanshan Feng (65), Suzann Pettersen (67), Jiyai Shin (68), and Seon Hwa Lee (68).

Top-ranked Lorena Ochoa birdied three of the first five holes before racking up 13 consecutive pars in a 67 that left her at 202 with Natalie Gulbis.

Michelle Wie, bidding for her first win since getting her tour card late last year, hit 16 greens in regulation but was near the bottom of the field in putting. She shot a 70 and was at 204. When she finally rolled in a 15-foot birdie putt at the 16th hole, she raised both arms in mock celebration.

Now they'll all be chasing Yi.

Asked what a victory would mean to her, she briefly consulted with a translator. He relayed her response:

"If I win, I will feel like I own the world."

-- Rusty Miller

Echenique leads after 3rd round of French Open

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France - Rafa Echenique of Argentina held onto his lead at the French Open on Saturday, shooting a 1-under 70 for a one-stroke advantage over Martin Kaymer of Germany after the third round.

The Argentine was at 11-under 202 after starting the day with a two-stroke lead on Kaymer.

"Just a little nervous today," said Echenique, who is seeking his first victory on the European Tour. "On No. 1, I missed a putt from one or two feet. I was not relaxed on the first three holes. But after that, I made long putts on the No. 4 and the No. 5."

Paul Waring of England had a 68 to climb from seventh to third, two strokes off the lead and one better than compatriot Seve Benson, who also shot a 68.

Benson had a share of fourth with Richard Green of Australia (70) and Peter Hanson of Sweden (70).

England's Lee Westwood (70) and Ian Poulter (66), four and five strokes back respectively, also remained in contention.

"I didn't miss a fairway, I didn't miss a green so it was pretty flawless," said Poulter, a runner-up at the British Open last year. "Apart from the second shot into the last (hole), which I thought was pathetic, I was already thinking about my lunch. ... It was pretty clinical."

Echenique was briefly caught by the chasing pack after the turn when he fell into a tie for the lead with Waring and Charl Schwartzel of South Africa at 10 under.

A runner-up at the BMW International Open in Munich last weekend, Echenique started his third round slowly with a bogey on the first hole.

Waring, ranked No. 130 on the European Tour, hit an approach from the rough that landed a few feet from the pin on No. 6 and helped him tie Echenique atop the leaderboard at 9 under.

But Echenique regained a two-stroke lead by sinking two straight birdies, including a 20-foot putt on the fourth.

Another bogey from Echenique on the eighth again cut his lead, allowing Schwartzel to pull even at 10 under with two consecutive birdies.

Waring picked up a shot on the 13th to join them, but he slipped back to third with a bogey on 14th, the longest hole on the Golf National course.

Schwartzel's run was marred by three bogeys in four holes, dropping the South African to a share of seventh and leaving Echenique in charge.

Kaymer dropped a shot on his first hole, but played solidly the rest of the way. The European Tour's 2007 rookie of the year sank two straight birdies - after an approach on the sixth that stopped one foot from the cup and a 13-foot putt on No. 7.

"There were a lot of very difficult pins today," Kaymer said. "... I played very safe. It was pretty much my strategy for today and it's going to be the same for tomorrow."

-- Trung Latieule