THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606160152
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH. LENGTH: 32 lines
The more he plays Oakland Hills, the better Curtis Strange scores.
Strange turned in an early morning 1-over-par 71 Saturday at the U.S. Open. That followed an opening round 74 and a second-round 73 and left the 41-year-old former two-time Open champion at 8-over 218 after 54 holes.
``I played pretty good today,'' he said, ``good enough to have shot 66 or 67.
``I felt good when I got up, felt good when I warmed up, and I played the first couple of holes solid. And it helps when you look up and see some red (under-par) numbers on the scoreboard. It gives you incentive.''
Strange balanced a bogey with a birdie-2 on the front nine to make the turn at even-par 35. He made bogey-5 at No. 10, then came back with a 7-iron approach to six feet of the cup on the next hole, setting up a birdie.
His major mistake came at the 471-yard par-4 14th. A badly struck 2-iron approach landed in the short rough, followed by a bad chip. Three swipes later, Strange was stuck with double-bogey 6.
He made birdie-3 at the 403-yard 16th, sticking an 8-iron approach four feet from the flag.
Strange said he's set as a goal a top-10 finish, a possibility were he able to shoot a below-par round today.
``You put a score in the red numbers Sunday at an Open and you can pass a lot of people,'' he said, mindful that Greg Norman jumped past 60 players Friday after shooting 4-under 66. ``Right now, that's all I want to do - shoot a good score on this golf course.'' by CNB