Tolles’ 64 Gives Him Lead by 2

Tommy Tolles, Justin Leonard and David Duval think they can win The Players Championship. It makes no difference that they have never won on the PGA Tour.

For three weeks in a row they’ve seen others do it. Now they all feel it is their turn.

“If the putter stays hot the way it has been the last two days I think I can win,” Tolles said after shooting a 64 Friday at the TPC Stadium Course at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., for the lead at 11-under-par 133.

“I think David’s ready and I feel the same about myself,” Leonard said after finishing strongly to salvage a 70 for a 36-hole score of 135, two behind Tolles, along with Mark Calcavecchia.

“I feel like my time will come,” Duval said after his 66 put him in a tie with Jay Haas, Fuzzy Zoeller and Kenny Perry at 136.

If either Tolles, 29, Leonard, 23, or Duval, 24, win this talent-rich event it will be the fourth consecutive week a nonwinner has won.

“They have played without fear,” Tolles said about Tim Herron, Paul Goydos and Scott McCarron, the first-time winners the last three weeks. “They are not intimidated by some of these guys.”

Tolles, from Flat Rock, N.C.--a place he says is “too cold for bass and too hot in the summer for trout”--attacked the front nine with great iron play. He made three birdie putts inside six feet and chipped in from 25 feet on the eighth hole. On the back nine, he made three birdie putts of 20 feet or longer.

“It’s me, the golf ball and the golf course,” he said. “If I limit it to those three things, I’ll be all right.”

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At San Antonio, Raymond Floyd and teaching pro Charlie Epps shot 66s to share the first-round lead in the $650,000 SBC Dominion Seniors tournament.

Floyd’s round featured four birdies and an eagle, that on a 30-foot putt on the par-5 18th. Epps, the head pro at Houston’s Bentwater Country Club, had seven birdies on the 6,814-yard Dominion Country Club course.

Gary Player was alone in third place at 67.