Golf Roundup : A 67 Puts Hal Sutton 2 Shots Ahead at Atlanta

Hal Sutton, vowing to play with an aggressive style in today’s final round, moved into a two-shot lead in the $500,000 Georgia-Pacific Atlanta golf tournament Saturday with a five-under-par 67.

“I’m going to be thinking birdie from the time I tee off tomorrow,” Sutton said after posting his 201 total to wrest the lead from second-round leader Doug Tewell, who fell into a tie for second place with Scott Hoch at 203.

“I’m trying to think aggressively,” Sutton said. “I think that’s the way winners think. If I play conservative, I’ll get beat.”

Sutton, the 1983 PGA champion, has won two tournaments this year and four in the last 12 months. He had shared the first-round lead on the hilly, 7,007-yard Atlanta Country Club course.

Tewell, who was two shots ahead of Sutton at the start of the round, never got anything going, settling for a 71.

Hoch birdied the final hole and had a 70.

Sutton, recognized as one of the game’s top young players after only 4 1/2 years on the PGA Tour, was in position to build a bigger lead before he three-putted for a bogey on the 14th and then failed to get down from a trap on the par-3 16th, where he took his third bogey of the day.

Playing in the final threesome with Tewell and Hoch, Sutton also birdied the finishing hole.

Sutton, who said he should have had a 64, birdied three times from the 6- to 12-foot range on the front side before three-putting from 50 feet for his first bogey on No. 9.

He birdied four of the first six holes on the back, Nos. 10, 11, 13 and 15, plus his two-putt birdie from 40 feet on the final hole.

Chi Chi Rodriguez shot a 67 to take a three-shot lead after two rounds in the Senior Tournament Players Championship at Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland.

Rodriguez’s five-under-par round put him at 136, heading into today’s final round of the rain-shortened tournament.

Gay Brewer shot a 71 and was second at 139. Peter Thomson, Lee Elder and Don January were at 140.

Gary Player, who shared the first-round lead with Brewer, shot a 74 and is at 142.

Val Skinner and Judy Dickinson shared the lead after three rounds in the $255,000 Rochester International ladies tournament at Pittsford, N.Y. They are at 211, one stroke ahead of Jan Stephenson.

Skinner, who started the day one over par, birdied the last two holes for a 66. Dickinson, the wife of veteran golfer Gardiner Dickinson, shot a 68, as did Stephenson.

Hollis Stacy, who led the tournament with Patti Rizzo after two rounds, shot a 71 for a 213.

Rizzo shot a 77 and fell back into the pack at 219.

Spain’s Severiano Ballesteros shot a third-round 68 in bright, breezy weather to stretch his lead to five strokes in the $300,000 Irish Open at Portmarnock, Ireland.

Ballesteros, seeking to win the title for the third time in four years, had a 54-hole score of 211, five under par.

Australia’s Wayne Riley, who shot a third-round 71, was at 216.

Deane Beman, the U.S. PGA Tour commissioner playing in his first competitive tournament in 13 years, shot a 77 and had a three-round total of 230.