2B
SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS
FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 2007
quote of the day
Q: Five KU football coaches have won Conference Coach of the Year honors. Who is the only one to win the award twice?
A: Glen Mason, in 1991 and 1995.
sports fact of the day
Kansas' first nationally televised football game was Sept. 20,1952, versus Texas Christian University on NBC. Kansas won the game 13-0.
BASKETBALL
Former Jayhawk Michael
Lee joins coaching staff
The number of former Jayhawks on the basketball coaching staff just grew.
Kansas coach Bill Self announced that former guard Michael Lee would be a graduate student manager for the basketball team. Lee is the third former player on the staff, Danny Manning and Brett Ballard also coach.
Lee played for Kansas from 2001 to 2005 and helped the Jayhawks to the Final Four twice. Outside shooting was his main strength. Lee made 50 percent of his three-point attempts his first two seasons
"It feels really good to be back," Lee said in a release. "It's funny, when I left I said I would never come back, but the longer I was away I realized Kansas is a part of me. I fell in love with Kansas from day one and I will be a part of Kansas until the day I die."
Mark Dent
Royals baseball
Tony Gulterrez/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Texas Rangers' Michael Young is thrown out at first on an infield grounder as Kansas City Royals' Alex Gordon, right, waits for the throw in the first Inning of a baseball game in Arlington, Texas, on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007.
》 CANADIAN WOMEN'S OPEN
Diaz leads in Alberta after second-place tie in Sweden Wie shoots 75, opens 10 strokes behind fellow American
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EDMONTON, Alberta — Laura Diaz shot a bogey-free 6-under 65 on Thursday to take the first-round lead in the Canadian Women's Open, while 17-year-old Michelle Wie opened with a 75 to drop 10 strokes back.
Diaz, coming off a second place tie Sunday in Sweden in the European tour's Scandinavian TPC, made a long birdie putt on the par-4 first hole—her 10th hole of the day on the Royal Mayfair course.
was nice to see that go in. It puts me in a good frame of mind going into tomorrow."
"It was just really fun for me to make the 33-footer." Diaz said. It's been what I've struggled with, so it
Wie, making her first appearance in the event, closed her late
ance in the even afternoon round with a double bogey on the par-4 ninth. She also had a double-bogey 6 on No. 12, a bogey on the par-5 third and a birdie on the par-4 first.
"Who wouldn't be frustrated today, right?" Wile soid. "I a wort."
because I felt like I was driving good and I had two bad holes. I mean, I played very consistently aside from that, made a lot of good p save. I've just got to break through and
"It was just really fun for me to make the 33-footer. It's been what I've struggled with, so it was nice to see that go in."
LAURA DIAZ Golfer
shoot a really low score."
K e l l i
Kuehne and
Kyeong Bae
opened with
66s, 2005 winner
Meena Lee
topped a group
at 67, and
Paula Creamer
and Juli Inkster
shot 68s.
"Have you seen my year?" Kuehne asked. "Just one day at a time. I've got some things I've got to go work on practice-wise. I'll go out tomorrow, add them up when we're done, and keep going."
Defending champion Cristie
Kerr had a 69.
Kuehne has missed the cut in eight of her last nine tournaments.
"I have a lot to work on, but with all that being said I shot two under and I'm only four back at this point and it's only Thursday, so there's a lot to be positive about at this point."
"I didn't putt as well as I would like to," Kerr said, the U.S. Open champion. "I had a lot of chances out there for birdie and I missed a couple of short putts.
Top-ranked Lorena Ochoa opened with a 70 in her first round since winning the Women's British Open at St. Andrews.
"I hit the ball really good, especially with the irons. Not so good with my driver," Ochoa said. "It was kind of like an up and down round, but I'm pleased I finished in the red numbers and all that matters is to be in a good position for the rest of the tournament."
Alena Sharp shot a 70 to top the 15 Canadians in the field.
"I putted really well today on the front," Sharp said, from Hamilton, Ontario. "When I wasn't playing so well, I was making great up and downs and great long putts, so I'm very happy with the way I started. It's nerve-racking the first day at the Canadian Open being a Canadian, so I'm really happy."
Will MacKenzie acknowledges the crowd after making par on the 17th hole during the first round of the Wyndham Championship golf tournament in Greensboro, N.C. MacKenzie topped the leader after the first round.
PGA
MacKenzie ahead after first round
Sara D. Davis/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nine birdies contribute to one-shot lead
BY JOEDY MCCREARY ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Will MacKenzie would be a natural for the X Games. Now he's out to prove there's room for a kayaking, snowboarding surfer in the sometimes stuffy world of golf.
MacKenzie, who spent a more than a decade away from the sport, nearly made a hole-in-one and had nine birdies to offset one bogey in taking an encouraging first step toward the second victory of his career.
“People might think that since I quit golf for a while and lived the life of an outdoor enthusiast that, you know, I break the mold, and I'm sure I do,” MacKenzie said. “I want my peers to respect me as a golfer, and I think most of them do, but (I) also like to cheer them up a little bit and do silly things like stand on my head from time
MacKenzie shot an 8-under 64 on Thursday to take a one-hot lead over Lucas Glover, Steve Marino, Brian Davis and Jeff Overton after the first round of the Wyndham Championship.
foot birdie putt on No. 18 when he said his shot was knocked offline by a divot.
to time
be cause
that's what
I like to
do."
WILL MACKENZIE
Golfer
"I want my peers to respect me as a golfer, but I also like to cheer them up a little bit and do silly things like stand on my head from time to time."
do.
Seven
players
— Carl
Pettersson,
John
Merrick
Todd
Hamilton
"You've just got to do the same things we did today—put the ball in the fairway and take advantage when you get the short clubs." Glover said.
Todd Fischer, Greg Kraft, John Huston and 2003 winner Shigeki Maruyama — were two strokes back on a steamy day at the 7,333-yard Forest Oaks Country Club course where temperatures were high and scores were consistently low. After the opening round, 79 players — or, more than half of the field of 156 — were 3 under or better.
But the story of the day clearly was MacKenzie's. The one-time golf prodigy from Greenville, N.C., became burned out at the age of 14 and walked away from the sport for 11 years.
started quickly and threatened MacKenzie's early lead by moving to 7 under early in their back nines, and had their sights on the course record of 62 before fading.
Both Petterson and Glover
"I don't think (Bill) Parcells coaches in the fourth without knowing what the score is." Glover said. "I knew what was going on. I just kept trying to make birdies. (Watching the leaderboard) didn't change anything."
Pettersson bogeyed No.16
For a while he lived in a van
MacKenzie, who spent more than a decade away from the sport, nearly made a hole- one and had nine birdies to offset one bogey.
Overton hit 17 greens, had three straight birdies on Nos. 14-16 and seemed poised to tie MacKenzie, but he lipped out a 4-
in Montana, spending his summers kayaking and his winters snowboarding, and once in the mid-1990s even considered kicking field goals for coach Steve Logan at his hometown school, East Carolina.
after missing a 6-foot par putt,
and had pars on four of his last five holes. Glover, starting on the back nine, birdied seven of his first 11 holes but closed his bogey-free round with seven consecutive pars.
Among the highlights of MacKenzie's round Thursday were a near-miss on the 226-yard, par-3 eighth. He used a 4-iron to drill the flagstick, then tapped in a 3-inch putt for birdie. MacKenzie then opened the back nine with birdies on five of seven holes, rolling in a 21-foot birdie putt on No. 16 during his march up the leaderboard.
At 25, he was lured back to the links after watching his hero's final professional victory: Payne Stewart's fist-pumping triumph at the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, one of MacKenzie's favorite courses, and the accomplishment prompted him to pick up the clubs again and work his way
mint mid-life crisis. I didn't know if I wanted to go back to Montana or Alaska or go to France ... I hit some balls and I was like, 'Wow, this is fantastic. Maybe I want to play again.'
up the sport's ladder. He joined the PGA Tour in 2005.
"I saw the competitive ... flare involved." MacKenzie said. "Tired of beating myself up. I was in a little
V