Kung Secures First Title

Annika Sorenstam would have liked one more round. The way she played on the back nine, a few more holes might have been enough.

For Candie Kung, though, the Takefuji Classic ended at just the right time.

Kung bogeyed the final hole Saturday but still won her first LPGA tournament by two shots over a charging Sorenstam and two others with a closing round of two-under-par 70 at Las Vegas.

Sorenstam shot her second straight 67, a score that left her wishing the tournament were 72 holes instead of 54.

“I’ve always been in favor of four-day [tournaments],” Sorenstam said. “But I knew it was 54 holes going into the tournament.”

Kung had a three-shot lead going into the final hole, where in the first two days of the tournament she had made double bogey and bogey. This time, she three-putted, but it didn’t matter.

“This is great, that’s all I can say about it,” said the 21-year-old Kung, a former USC and Fountain Valley High standout. “It’s awesome.”

Kung, who finished at 12 under, thought she might have the lead on the final hole, but she wasn’t sure. She avoided looking at leaderboards until she was on the 18th green.

Still, she was nervous, drinking a bottle of water a hole on the last few holes while trying to keep her mind off what she was doing.

“I didn’t know how many shots I was leading by,” she said. “I thought it might be one or two. I didn’t look at the leaderboard at all.”

Kung double bogeyed the hole in the first round and bogeyed her final hole after shanking a shot in the second round. But Saturday, the four-footer she missed for par meant only that her winning margin was smaller.

Christie Kerr and Soo-Yun Kang finished tied with Sorenstam for second at 10 under.

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Stewart Cink shot a 69 and showed some new confidence, surviving an up-and-down third round to hold the lead in the MCI Heritage at Hilton Head Island, S.C.

Cink, the 2000 champion at Harbour Town Golf Links, talked Friday about how fears of growing success and potential failure plagued his golf game the past two years. And when Cink’s one-shot lead at the start became a three-stroke deficit over the first seven holes, it looked as if some of those old worries had showed up again.

But as he has most of the season, Cink picked up his game. He made a 35-foot birdie putt at No. 8 and had birdies on Nos. 10 and 11 to move back into the lead. He stood at 12-under 201, a stroke ahead of Jeff Sluman, who shot a 64.

Woody Austin (65) and Kenny Perry (67) were at 10 under. Four-time MCI Heritage champion Davis Love III (69), Hal Sutton (71), Steve Flesch (67) and Chad Campbell (70) were at nine under.

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Tom Watson and Bob Gilder finished the second round of the Emerald Coast Classic tied for the lead at 10-under-par 130, one stroke in front of six other Champions Tour golfers at Milton, Fla.

First-round co-leaders Gil Morgan and Leonard Thompson were one shot back, along with Bobby Wadkins, Morris Hatalsky, Larry Nelson and Vicente Fernandez. Tom Purtzer and Dana Quigley were each two strokes off the lead.

Gilder bogeyed the ninth and 12th holes but made up for it with eight birdies for a 64. Wadkins shot a career-best 61.