Roth moves into contention in US Senior Open
July 30, 2010
SAMMAMISH, Wash. (AP)—After qualifying for his first U.S. Golf Associationevent in 35 years, J.R. Roth decided to stick around for a while.
The little-known Roth shot a 4-under 66 in the second round of the U.S.Senior Open on Friday, vaulting himself into contention.
Roth hit 15 greens in regulation and took advantage with his strong putting.
He had six birdies despite the firm conditions, including a pair of 35-footputts that fell on the ninth and 18th holes. His putt on 18 broke hard fromright to left and just sneaked in the side of the hole to cap his round and gethim back into red figures headed to the weekend.
“It was great,” Roth said. “I played well all day. The round just kind ofdeveloped. I knew I had something special going when I made birdie on number9.”
“Then I birdied 11 and was thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’ve got somethingreally good going.”’
He followed it up with a 10-footer to save par on 12.
This the second USGA tournament Roth has played in. The other was the 1975U.S. Junior Amateur.
“I think the way USGA sets up the golf course it really is good for me,because I’m just one of those guys that grinds it out,” Roth said. “I can makeas good a par as anybody, and that’s usually a pretty good score.”
Roth has won several tournaments in Michigan, where he worked as a clubprofessional at Flint Country Club. After playing on the Champions Tour for acouple years, he was unable to find another job in Michigan and decided to moveto Farmington, N.M., and take the job at San Juan Country Club.
Despite never winning and only notching a couple top-25 finishes during hisshort time on the Champions Tour, the experience of playing against some of thetop players on the tour and his experience winning tournaments in Michigan havehelped climb the leaderboards.
“If you’ve never won golf tournaments before, then you don’t know what thepressure is like,” Roth said. “And there’s always pressure with winning golftournaments. I’ve won plenty of golf tournaments. I’m just going to play. I’mjust going to play, that’s all.”
ONE SHORT: Before second-round play began, Olin Browne found himself alittle short-handed.
Browne’s pitching wedge broke while on the driving range before his morningtee time and he was forced to play with just 13 clubs in his bag.
It didn’t phase Browne and he shot an even par 70 to remain at 3-over par.
Browne was on the range when the epoxy holding the shaft and clubheadtogether came loose and broke apart. The staff at Sahalee tried to repair theclub before the round began but were unsuccessful.
Browne said that he took a little off his tee shots to leave himself longershots into the greens that he could use a 9-iron instead. He said there is abouta 15-yard gap in his clubs without the pitching wedge in his arsenal.
“I played around it actually on a couple holes and when I needed it Iplayed my sand wedge back in my stance and just slugged it and I made birdietwice with it, so it worked out,” Browne said.
“This course is so hard, you’re probably not shooting at more than four orfive pins today anyway.”
Browne was going to attempt to get the club repaired for the third round,but said that if he couldn’t get it fixed he would play without it again onSaturday.
IN A FUNK: No one appears destined to match Fred Funk’s winning total of 20under at Crooked Stick last year.
Least of which is Funk.
The defending champ rebounded from a poor first round to shoot an even-par70 on Friday. He’ll be around for the weekend, but is well out of contention.
“Well I wanted to be around for the weekend. My teacher and I worked onsome stuff last night and it really hit the last five or six holes,” Funk said.
Funk said his focus after Thursday’s opening round 76 was finding someconsistency in the mechanics of his swing. He was still searching early, makinga pair of bogeys on his first nine, before rallying with a pair of birdiescoming in.
INFIRMARY: Peter Jacobsen withdrew midway through Friday’s second round witha left leg injury. Jacobsen was 7 over through nine holes and 11 over for thetournament when he pulled out. D.A. Weibring withdrew with an unknown injurybefore starting his second round and Wayne Levi pulled out with an elbow injury.
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