Sullivan takes lead at South African Open

Reuters/JohannesburgEnglishman Andy Sullivan took a single stroke lead after shooting a 70 in the second round of the South African Open at Glendower Golf Club yesterday. But he will be feeling the heat with Charl Schwartzel just one shot behind in second place after the 2011 Masters winner hit a 69, starting his round with consecutive bogeys but finishing birdie, eagle, birdie for a two-round total of 137. Schwartzel is the highest profile South African golfer to have never won the country’s top professional prize in a tournament first played more than a century ago. But the sentimental favourite Ernie Els, who was just one off the overnight leaders after a first round 67, fell dramatically back after a five over-par 77 which included two triple bogeys. He did make the cut, however. Sullivan, who carded an opening day 66, said he felt he might have been able to post a better score but dropped shots after finding the thick rough off the tee. “I thought it was going to be a really good knock on the front nine, but a few little errant drives meant the rough got its payback on me today,” he told reporters. “But anything in red figures (under par) is good, so I am really happy with the position I am in. I thought I did well on eight to make birdie after a couple of smelly holes in the middle.”Sullivan’s day included four birdies, three of which came on the back nine – Sullivan’s first nine – at Glendower Golf Club in Johannesburg. It was enough to hold off Charl Schwartzel, who sits in second place after a second-round 69. Schwartzel closed birdie-eagle-birdie to move within a shot of the lead.“When I get in these positions I find myself enjoying it more,” Sullivan said. “It’s where you want to be, you practice to be in these situations and I am playing with the guys I always wanted to as a kid. It’s fantastic.“It’s new territory to be up there after two rounds, but hopefully I can take what I usually do in rounds three and four, and blow the field away.”Joint overnight leader Jbe Kruger slumped after a round of 80. Denmark’s Lasse Jensen and South Africans Colin Nel and JJ Senekal are tied in third place, two strokes off the lead. Woods ‘ready to go,’ will make season debut in Phoenix Tiger Woods will make his season debut at this month’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, a tournament he has not played in 14 years, the former world number one said yesterday. Woods, who was limited to nine tournaments last year due to back issues, also said he will play the following week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California. The Phoenix Open, famous for its massive galleries and an amphitheatre par-three 16th that is the center of the event’s party atmosphere, will mark Woods’s first event since finishing tied for last at the 18-player Hero World Challenge last month. “It will be great to return to Phoenix,” Woods said in a statement on his website. “The crowds are amazing and always enthusiastic, and the 16th hole is pretty unique in golf. “Torrey is a very important place to me. My pop took me there when I was younger, and I have a lot of special memories of watching the tour play there when I was growing up.” In three previous starts at Phoenix, Woods cracked the top five twice, finishing third in 1999 and tied for fifth in 2001. In 1997, he electrified the huge crowds surrounding the par-3 16th hole by making a hole-in-one. Woods is very familiar with Torrey Pines, where he grew up playing junior golf, and he has won the tournament seven times, most recently in 2013. The last of his 14 majors came in the 2008 US Open on the South Course at Torrey Pines where he beat Rocco Mediate in a playoff.