GOLF ROUNDUP : Henke, Hallet Share B.C. Open Lead at 66

Tour sophomore Nolan Henke, who missed the cut in five of his past eight tournaments, made birdie putts on the 16th and 17th holes for a five-under-par 66 Thursday to tie Jim Hallet for the first-round lead of the B.C. Open at Endicott, N.Y.

Hallet, who has only one other top-10 finish this year, made a 10-foot birdie on his final hole for his 66 over the 6,966-yard En-Joie Golf Course. Hallet played a steady round with five birdies despite strong afternoon winds of up to 15 m.p.h. that made driving difficult on many of the narrow fairways.

Chasing the leaders in the $700,000 tournament were Clark Burroughs, Johnny Miller Jr. and Emlyn Aubrey, all at 67. Seven golfers were two strokes back.

Seve Ballesteros suffered his biggest defeat in 14 years of World Match Play golf when he was beaten, 8 and 6, by Northern Ireland’s Ronan Rafferty at Virginia Water, England.

Rafferty romped to a record-breaking 10-under-par 62 in the first of the two rounds against four-time winner Ballesteros.

In other first-day matches, American Chip Beck downed Ryoken Kawagishi, 4 and 3, Zimbabwe’s Mark McNulty beat Billy Ray Brown of the United States, 4 and 2, and Australia’s Wayne Grady defeated Bernhard Langer of West Germany, 4 and 2.