Golf Roundup : Garbacz Opens With 65, Keeps Her Cool

Lori Garbacz has been close often enough to know it only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

So she didn’t get too excited after shooting a seven-under-par 65 Thursday to take a one-stroke lead in the $300,000 LPGA Championship at Mason, Ohio.

“I don’t think anyone is more surprised with a 65 than I am,” said Garbacz, who has never won in eight years on the LPGA Tour. “I played solid golf today. No bogeys. Whenever I break 74, I feel like I have a chance to win.

“When I teed off, I was just thinking about making the cut. It’s not going to get any easier.”

Garbacz, 27, a native of South Bend, Ind., who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., had the second-best round of her career.

Ayako Okamoto of Japan, a six-time tour winner, was one stroke back. Pat Bradley had a 67.

Fred Couples, who missed the cut in last week’s Memorial and has failed to finish a tournament in the top 10 in 10 months, tied the course record with an eight-under-par 64 to take a three-stroke lead in the first round of the $500,000 Kemper Open at Bethesda, Md.

Larry Mize, Charles Bolling and Tom Sieckmann each shot 67s to tie for second place.

Couples was six under par after 10 holes and had a course-record nine birdies. George Burns and Tommy Jacobs previously had rounds of 64 at Congressional, the second-longest and one of the most difficult courses on the PGA Tour.

Oklahoma State’s Scott Verplank shot a second straight four-under-par 68 to break a three-way tie and grab the lead in the second round of the NCAA Division I men’s golf championship at Winston-Salem, N.C.

Verplank finished the second round at 136 to lift Oklahoma State from fourth place into the lead at three-under-par 573.

Oklahoma’s Doug Martin, who shot a 68, was second at 140.

Sam Randolph of USC shot a 70 and was at 143.

Wake Forest’s Tim Straub, who was tied with Verplank after one round, shot a 77 for a 145 total, and Brad Clark of Clemson, who also opened with a 68, skied to an 80 for a 148.

Favored Florida climbed into a tie with Miami (Fla.) at the halfway mark of the NCAA women’s championship in Columbus, Ohio.

The Gator women had a second-round total of 293 to Miami’s 296, giving both schools 36-hole scores of 590. USC had the best score of the day, a one-under-par 291, and was in third place at 596.

The individual leader at 143 was Florida’s Page Dunlap, who shot a three-under-par 70. Kay Cockrell of UCLA had a 7l for a 145.