Practice Makes Floyd Perfect

If Raymond Floyd couldn’t win he wasn’t going to play, and he hasn’t won a golf tournament since November.

The options: Quit or practice.

He chose practice.

“You’ve all heard me say if I don’t feel competitive I’m not going to play,” Floyd said after shooting a six-under-par 66 Friday to share the 36-hole lead of the Senior Players Championship with John Bland and Hale Irwin.

“I was getting to the point where I wasn’t competitive and, of course, I don’t want to quit. I’m not ready to quit, so I went to work on my golf game and it’s paying dividends.”

The three had a seven-under 137 total for two rounds on the 6,876-yard TPC of Michigan in Dearborn.

Irwin had a 67 Friday and Bland had a 69.

Lee Trevino, Bruce Summerhays and Jerry McGee were one more stroke behind, and defending champion J.C. Snead and Bob Charles were at 139.

First-round leader Tom Weiskopf followed Thursday’s 66 with a 79 that included a double-bogey six on No. 12 and a double-bogey seven on 17.

Floyd birdied No. 1 with a 10-foot putt after his tee shot ended up in a fairway bunker.

It was one of only two fairways Floyd missed in the round that included six birdies and one bogey. He misjudged the wind on the par-three eighth hole and wound up with a bogey.

“Playing as well as I did today and yesterday from tee to green is helping my putting,” Floyd said. “I feel very good about myself. . . . Now I expect to shoot a good round and I haven’t had that feeling for quite some time.”

The Jack Nicklaus-designed course continued to play relatively easily, ands 32 players broke par on the 6,876-yard layout in the second round. One of them was Joe Jimenez, who matched his age and shot a 70.

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Scott Hoch’s putting him, but his long game returned to help him to a three-under-par 68 in the second round of the Michelob Championship in Williamsburg, Va. Coupled with his first-round 64, that gives him 132 and a two-shot lead over Fred Funk, Tom Purtzer, Tommy Armour III and Bart Bryant after 36 holes.

Hoch needed 32 putts in the rain Friday, the precursor to Hurricane Bertha that had players wondering how much golf would be played this weekend.

He needed only 23 during the first round over the 6,797-yard Kingsmill Golf Course.

Mark McCumber, the only two-time champion in the field, moved into contention at 135 after a 67, but Curtis Strange, who lives on the course, followed his first-round 65 with a 77, his worst round in competition over the layout.

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Amy Fruhwirth, Barb Mucha and Kelly Robbins shot five-under-par 67s and were tied for the lead after the opening round of the Youngstown-Warren LPGA Classic in Ohio.

Fruhwirth played a bogey-free round, and Mucha and Robbins overcame three bogeys each by making eight birdies on the 6,308-yard Avalon Lakes Golf Course.

Kim Saiki, Catrin Nilsmark, Kathy Postlewait and Tammie Green were one shot behind.