GOLF ROUNDUP : Bradley Shares Lead; Alcott 1 Back

Two former U.S. Women’s Open champions, Pat Bradley and Amy Alcott, are in position to win the tournament again. But they will have to hold off the young guard in today’s final round.

Bradley, the LPGA’s top money winner, battled back from a triple bogey Saturday to share the lead at one-over-par 214 with non-winner Joan Pitcock, 24, of Fresno after 54 holes over the Colonial Country Club course in Ft. Worth.

Bradley, who won the 1981 Open and has 27 victories, shot a one-over-par 72 despite making a triple-bogey seven on the dangerous “Hogan Alley” fifth hole, a 390-yard, par-four that cuts along the Trinity River.

Pitcock, the low amateur in the 1986 Open and a professional since she was 19, also shot a 72, thanks to a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-three 16th hole.

“Everybody will probably be pulling for Pat tomorrow, and I don’t think anybody thinks I’m going to win, but I just might,” Pitcock said.

Alcott and Brandie Burton, 19, of San Bernardino were one shot back. Alcott, who needs only one victory to secure a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame, shot a 72 in 97-degree heat; and Burton, bidding to become the youngest winner of the Open, shot a 69.

The youngest winner was Catherine Lacoste, who was 22 when she won in 1967.

Gene Sauers and Australian Ian Baker-Finch shot five-under-par 66s to share the lead after three rounds of the New England tournament at Sutton, Mass.

Sauers and Baker-Finch, at 13-under-par 200, were three strokes clear of the field heading into today’s final round of the $1-million event.

Sauers and Baker-Finch broke out of an eight-way tie for second place as 36-hole leader Bruce Fleisher shot a 73.

Fleisher, 42, trying to compete on the tour after an eight-year absence, had opened with rounds of 64 and 67 to equal the tournament record of 131 for 36 holes.

Sauers, who shot 67 in each of the first two rounds, had six birdies and one bogey Saturday. Baker-Finch caught Sauers at 13-under with a birdie on the par-four 17th hole.

Larry Ziegler’s second 66 in as many days earned him a two-shot lead over Tom Shaw and Jim Dent after the second round of the $350,000 Newport Cup senior tournament at Newport, R.I.

Ziegler had birdies on three of the four par-fives on the Newport Country Club’s par-72, 6,722-yard seaside layout.

Bobby Verwey shot a par 71 in a head-to-head battle with his sister’s husband, Gary Player, and took a one-stroke lead after three rounds of the Seniors British Open at St. Annes, England.

Verwey’s 215 was a shot better than Player and Englishmen Peter Butler and Tommy Horton.