GOLF ROUNDUP : Gallagher’s Quick Start Is Good for Series Lead

Jim Gallagher Jr. had plenty of moral support Thursday, and he entertained a gallery of family and friends with a birdie-eagle start and a four-under-par 66 for the first-round lead in the World Series of Golf at Akron, Ohio.

Gallagher, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this season, is one stroke ahead of Payne Stewart at the Firestone Country Club South Course.

“I’ve got 30 or 40 of those cousins and aunts and uncles out there hollering at me too,” said Gallagher, who plays out of Indianapolis and whose father is a golf pro in Marion, Ind. “It’s always fun to play that way, in front of them. But the golf course just sets up pretty well for me.”

But perhaps not as well for anyone else because of new greens and fast, dry conditions

“No one’s going to shoot lights out,” Gallagher said. “This course always gets you before you’re done. It has a lot of teeth out there. You have to be the best dentist you can and hope you don’t get a root canal.”

None of the winners of this year’s Grand Slam events practiced especially good dentistry. U.S. Open champion Corey Pavin shot a 71, PGA winner Steve Elkington a 72, British Open champion John Daly a 78--that included a quadruple bogey on the par-four 16th--and Masters winner Ben Crenshaw played a string of five holes in six over on the way to a 79.

Jose Maria Olazabal, Fred Couples, Woody Austin, Ted Tryba, Mark McCumber and Tom Lehman were at 68.

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Patty Sheehan mastered Montreal’s gusting winds and Beaconsfield Golf Club, shooting a six-under-par 66 for a five-stroke lead in the first round of the du Maurier Classic, the last of the four major events on the LPGA Tour.

“It could be one of the best rounds I’ve ever had in my life, considering the conditions,” said Sheehan, 38, a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame who has won five majors but has yet to win the du Maurier.

Tied at 71 were Amy Benz, Jane Geddes, Lori Tatum, Laurie Rinker-Graham, Jenny Lidback, Jane Crafter, Mardi Lunn and Liselotte Neumann.

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Defending champion Tiger Woods regained his putting stroke and tamed the winds at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island to advance to the second round of the U.S. Amateur Championship.

Woods, who shot a five-over-par 75 the previous day, took the lead against Patrick Lee on the first hole and won, 3 and 2.

Also advancing to the second round was Trip Kuehne of McKinney, Tex., the runner-up to Woods last year. Kuehne defeated Chad Wright of Ventura, 4 and 3.

Jerry Courville of Norwalk, Conn., the medalist from the 36 holes of stroke competition that preceded match play, was upset by William Hadden of North Haven, Conn., 2 up. Hadden reached match play Thursday morning in a six-man playoff for three spots.