Strong Start Has Wadkins Hoping His Day Has Come

For 22 years, Bobby Wadkins has played the PGA Tour. He has made a good living, had a few high finishes but never won a tournament.

Maybe that 658-event losing streak is about to end.

Wadkins, displaying a magnificent--and hardly customary--touch with the putter, shot a 64, eight under par, Thursday and led after the first round of the Buick Challenge at Pine Mountain, Ga.

“Nobody is more surprised than me,” said Wadkins after the lowest first-round score in the tournament’s history. “I putted like Ben Crenshaw. I have his caddie this week. Maybe it’s rubbing off on me.”

Wadkins, playing the back nine first, gave a glimpse of what was to come when he birdied his opening hole, plopping a six-iron within 10 feet of the cup and sinking the putt.

As the day went on, his birdie count mounted: a 20-footer at No. 15, a 15-footer at No. 16, another 15-footer at No. 2, a 30-footer at No. 3 and a 20-footer at No. 4.

But the hole that moved Wadkins to the lead was No. 7, a 543-yard par-five. He hit a three-wood from the fairway to reach the green in two, then sank his longest putt of the day from at least 35 feet.

Wadkins is a shot ahead of Jim McGovern as lesser-known players controlled the top of the leader board at Calloway Gardens. Tiger Woods also had committed to play but withdrew Wednesday.

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Robin Hood shot a seven-under-par 65--the best round of her nine-year LPGA career--and had a two-stroke lead after the opening round of the Fieldcrest Cannon Classic at Cornelius, N.C.

Tennis

U.S. Open champion Pete Sampras and French Open winner Yevgeny Kafelnikov advanced, but Australian Open champion Boris Becker was eliminated from the $1-million Swiss Indoors at Basel.

Sampras advanced to the quarterfinals with a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 victory over German wild-card entry Thomas Haas. The third-seeded Kafelnikov defeated French qualifier Lionel Roux, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Becker, seeded fourth, was upset by Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

Johan Van Herck of Belgium upset top-seeded Felix Mantilla of Spain, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3, in the second round of the Sicilian International Championships at Palermo, Sicily. The second- and third-seeded players also were eliminated.

Pro Basketball

Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning blames NBA Commissioner David Stern for the failure of the deal that would have brought Washington Bullet forward Juwan Howard to the Heat.

“David Stern stuck his foot in the door and is the one who blew this up,” Mourning told the Palm Beach Post. “This was a vendetta against [Coach] Pat Riley. No question. People in New York [where Riley previously coached] did not want to see Pat do well [in Miami] so soon.”

The Philadelphia 76ers rehired former guard Maurice Cheeks as an assistant coach, four months after demoting him to scouting. Cheeks, who joined the team as an assistant before the 1994-95 season, was demoted May 13 when the team fired Coach John Lucas. . . . Rookie center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, a first-round pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has a broken bone in his right foot and is expected to miss considerable time. . . . Elston Turner, who played eight seasons in the NBA, was hired as an assistant by the Portland Trail Blazers. . . . The Sacramento Kings will go to international arbitration to determine if their No. 1 draft choice, Predrag Stojakovic, will play in the NBA this season. PAOK of Greece signed him last week to a two-year contract. Stojakovic is a naturalized Greek.

Boxing

Trainer Kevin Rooney’s claim that boxer Mike Tyson breached a career-long contract and owes him $49 million was put in the hands of a jury at Albany, N.Y. Rooney claims that Tyson and his mentor, Cus D’Amato, promised he would be Tyson’s trainer for life. . . . Nigel Benn is coming out of retirement for the second time in seven months for a rematch with WBO super-middleweight champion Steve Collins of Ireland. The Collins-Benn rematch is scheduled for Nov. 9 at Manchester, England.

Miscellany

Billy Payne, who brought the Olympics to Atlanta, was hired as a vice chairman by NationsBank Corp., which was a major corporate sponsor of the games. . . . Chinese air pistol sharpshooter Wang Yifu, who collapsed at the Atlanta Olympics, was discharged from a hospital although his injured vertebra has not healed. The 36-year-old shooter spent a month receiving treatment for the injury, which he thinks caused him to black out during his last shot at Atlanta. . . . Red Mihalik, 80, a prominent NCAA basketball referee in the 1960s, died Wednesday at Ford City, Pa.