GOLF ROUNDUP : Verplank Shoots a 62, but Stewart Leads by Shot

Ray Stewart followed an opening-day 63 with a two-under-par 70 on Friday for a one-stroke lead halfway through the Greater Milwaukee Open.

Stewart, who was tied for the lead with Jim Thorpe after one round, had two bogeys and four birdies Friday, giving him a 36-hole total of 133--11 under par and one stroke ahead of Ken Green.

Scott Verplank had seven consecutive birdies and shot a 62, one stroke off the course record set by Green when he won the tournament in 1988.

Verplank, who started the day at two over, birdied holes 11 through 17.

“I can’t explain it. I made a lot of good shots. I never made a long putt. On No. 17, I was wondering what the (birdie) record was,” Verplank said.

The PGA record is eight consecutive birdies, held by three players. Verplank parred No. 18.

Thorpe followed his 63 with a 73 Friday and was three shots back along with several other golfers, including Verplank.

Rocky Thompson, Dale Douglass and Terry Dill took advantage of ideal conditions to tie an 18-hole tournament record with seven-under-par 65s for a share of the first-round lead in the GTE North Seniors Classic at Indianapolis.

Agim Bardha, an Albanian hairdresser in his first exempt year on the Senior PGA Tour, Harold Henning, Mike Hill and Rives McBee trailed by a stroke at Broadmoor Country Club. Homero Blancas was at 67.

The group of six at 68 included George Archer, winner of last week’s Northwest Classic, Arnold Palmer and Charles Sifford.

Thompson, the mayor of Toco, Tex., a town of about 160 people near the Oklahoma border, recalled earlier success at Broadmoor.

“I played this course twice and shot 65 and never had a bogey,” Thompson said. “You get perfect lies in the fairway and the greens are as smooth as silk.”

Sandy Lyle of Scotland shot a 66 to tie for the second-round lead with Sweden’s Ove Sellberg in the rain-interrupted European Masters tournament at Crans-Sur-Sierre, Switzerland.

Lyle and Sellberg, who shot a 67 Friday, had 36-hole scores of 133. Howard Clark of England, the first-round leader, had a 122 after 34 holes and was to complete his second round today.

He was among the late starters kept from finishing the round because of a two-hour rain delay.