GOLF ROUNDUP : Clearwater Not Choked Up About Leading

Keith Clearwater isn’t worried about the pressure of leading a golf tournament going into the final round.

“I’m not afraid of this at all,” Clearwater said Saturday after shooting a bogey-free, six-under-par 66 that gave him a two-shot lead in the third round of the Atlanta Classic. “Golf is not important enough to be afraid of it.”

He had a 54-hole score of 204, 12 under par on the 7,018-yard Atlanta Country Club course.

Ranked 164th on this year’s money list, Clearwater held his two-shot advantage over second-round leader Larry Mize, South African Nick Price and Wayne Levi.

“It’s just frustrating because I couldn’t get anything going,” Mize said after a 71 that included two birdies and a bogey.

Price had a 69 that included four consecutive birdies during one stretch, and Levi capped an erratic round when he rolled in a 40-foot downhill eagle putt on the final hole.

Dale Douglass shot a four-under-par 66 to take a one-stroke lead over Gary Player and Charles Coody after the second round of the rain-delayed $500,000 Seniors event at the Chester Valley Golf Club in Malvern, Pa.

Douglass, who began the round three strokes off the pace, completed two rounds at 136. Both Player and Coody shot 68s on a dark, misty afternoon.

At 138 was Lee Trevino, who shared the opening-round lead at 67 with Mike and Dave Hill, and Ken Still, who has never won on the Seniors Tour. Trevino had two bogeys and a birdie for a one-over 71. Still had five birdies against two bogeys for a three-under 67 over the 6,406-yard layout.

Nancy Lopez scored two of the only four birdies managed in winds that gusted to 45 m.p.h. and won $95,000 on the front nine of the LPGA’s first Skins Game at Frisco, Tex.

Lopez won $45,000 with a downhill 20-foot birdie putt on the sixth hole at the Stonebriar Country Club course, and added another $50,000 with a 12-footer on the eighth.

Betsy King, the current holder of the U.S. Women’s Open and Dinah Shore titles, was the only other money-winner. King won $45,000 with a putt for par-five on the third hole.

Jan Stephenson, trying to make a comeback from a career-threatening finger injury, and veteran JoAnne Carner were shut out.

The ninth was halved, so the $25,000 prize on that hole is carried over to today, when the final nine holes will be played, with $310,000 up for grabs.

Pat Bradley’s 10-foot birdie putt on No. 18 capped a round of 66 that provided a four-shot lead over Patty Sheehan after the third round of the LPGA Corning (N.Y.) tournament.

Bradley, who started three strokes behind 36-hole leader Alice Ritzman, birdied Nos. 2, 4, 7 and 9 to vault into the lead, then overcame a bogey at No. 10 with birdies at 12 and 15 to take charge.

The birdie at No. 18 allowed Bradley to keep a safe margin over Sheehan, the 1983 Corning champion who followed 16 consecutive pars with birdies at 17 and 18.

Arizona’s Susan Slaughter, who was second a year ago, birdied the first hole in a sudden-death playoff to beat Michiko Hattori of Texas to win the NCAA women’s championship at Hilton Head Island, S.C.

Top-ranked Arizona State won its first title, shooting a final-round 304 for a 1,206 four-day score, 16 strokes ahead of UCLA on the 6,141-yard, par-72 Arthur Hills Course. Florida was third at 1,223, followed by San Jose State at 1,225.