Golf Roundup : Purtzer and Inkster Tie Record--61

Juli Inkster and Tom Purtzer shot an 11-under-par 61 to tie a tournament record and take a four-stroke lead Thursday in the first round of the $650,000 J.C. Penney mixed golf tournament at Largo, Fla.

Inkster, winner of four events this season on the LPGA Tour, and Purtzer, who won $218,280 on the PGA circuit, played a near flawless round on the 6,957-yard North Course at Bardmoor Country Club to equal the tournament record set by Hollis Stacy and Jerry Pate in 1977.

The Inkster-Purtzer partnership finished the day with 11 birdies and no bogeys. The pair struggled on only two holes--the par-5, 520-yard No. 16 and the par-4, 440-yard No. 4--but managed to save par on both.

The teams of Nancy Lopez-Curtis Strange, Val Skinner-Mike Hulbert, Amy Alcott-Bob Gilder and Marlene Hagge-Jim Simons shot 65s to share second place.

Lanny Wadkins, the only American in the field, and Britain’s Howard Clark both shot three-under-par 69s to share the first-round lead in the Million Dollar Golf Challenge at the Sun City resort in Bophuthatswana, a black tribal homeland northeast of Johannesburg.

Defending champion Bernhard Langer of West Germany had a 70, and he was followed by South African David Frost, who shot a 71.

The nine-man competition, now in its sixth year, is notable for the absence of some of the top American stars who competed in past years. Some reportedly bowed to political pressure from anti-apartheid groups and refused to come to South Africa.

New Zealand amateur Michael Barltrop outshot the professionals to take the first-round lead in the New Zealand Open at Auckland.

Before a rainstorm halted play with 35 players still on the course, Barltrop shot a five-under-par 65 for a one-stroke edge over Spain’s Jose-Maria Olazabal and Australia’s Ian Baker-Finch.

Corey Pavin, who has won this event the past two years, had a 72.