Pebble Beach Co-Leader Lucky In More Ways Than One
Golf February 10th. 2008, 1:53pm 
Coming into this afternoon at AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, the big story is the feel-good story of Dudley Hart. Hart enters the 4th round tied with Vijay Sighn for the lead at -9.
It’s been 10 years since Hart entered the 4th round of a tournament with the lead, but golf was the least of his concerns when he missed a big chunk of last season. From USA Today:
Hart skipped the final six months of last season when doctors discovered a softball-sized tumor in his wife’s lung, and he invariably feared the worse while tending to their preschool triplets.
Today, Hart’s wife Suzanne is recovering well. As you can imagine it was quite a scare for the family:
“It definitely scared me,” Hart said. “I kept looking at those kids and I can’t imagine … God forbid, when they get that tumor out, it comes back bad and they don’t have their mom around. That fortunately wasn’t the issue. You have a lot of positive and negative thoughts, but the negative ones really scare you.”
Now Hart has a chance to win a tournament for the first time in over 8 years. To do it he’s going to have to beat Vijay Sighn and hold off the rest of the field.
So far today the biggest threat has been Nicholas Thompson. Thompson came out blasting the ball today with birding the first 4 holes and 5 of the first 6. He’s climbed from 19th to tied for the lead before Vijay and Dudley even woke up today.
Leaderboard [ESPN]
6 Responses to “Pebble Beach Co-Leader Lucky In More Ways Than One”
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February 10th, 2008 at 2:16 PM
I’ll be cheering for Hart today but bad news for him, guys who are sitting on top of the leaderbord after 2 or 3 rounds usually shoot pretty high compared to the rest of the field on the weeked.
Earlier today the French dude who was leading the European Tour event in India has the worst score among the top 11 finishers.
Yesterday overnight leader Tim Herron had a bad round.
Last week JB Holmes held on to won but did it while shooting even par while everyone else in the top 10 was under par for the day.
Tiger blew up last Saturday with the lead. Ernie did the same on Sunday.
Yesterday in Europe, Damien McGrane was leading until he shot the worst score amongst the leaders.
At the Bob Hope, Justin Leonard entered the final round with the lead. He shot 72 while evryone around him was in the 60s, including a 65 from the guy who won.
At the Sony, KJ Choi held onto his overnight lead to win but had the highest score among the top 7 finishers. The guy playing with KJ and the one with the best chance to win ended up shooting 78 and finishing T25.
At the Mercedes, Mike Wier opened the final round as the leader and shot 70. The other four top five finishers shot 64, 64, 66 and 66.
Going back to Europe, in Quatar, Johan Edfors heads into the final round as the leader. After a 70 while Adam Scott shoots 61, Edfors finishes 4th.
Seems to be quite the trend. Every weekend, regardless of the tour, the person who heads into the day can rarely hang on and even if they do it is almost like they back into the win (kind of like JB Holmes last week).
Break it down even further and it seems the disease pretty much affects anyone playing in the final group.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:28 PM
BTW, Thompson cooled off. He is now -3 for the day and 4 off the lead.
Vijay -11
Yang -9
Host of others including Hart -8.
Thompson -7
Hart is +1 today. The only guy in the top 9 who is over par.
February 10th, 2008 at 2:43 PM
yea, it wouldve been nice to see him do a little better after his struggle.
ive always been a big vijay fan tho. itd be great to see him round back into form in time for the masters and give tiger a struggle. think his time has past tho.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:04 PM
I like Vijay myself, going back to when most everyone hated him for some reason. I can’t recall what it was now. There was a perception that he was a dick. I didn’t buy. Soon I started to hear stories about how Vijay will always seek out young players he gets paired with. He will find them on the range 3 or 4 weeks after he was in their group and give them a tip, something he noticed during the round that he thinks can help them. Ever since I heard that story I have always liked Veej.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:08 PM
it was the annika sorenstam thing. where he said something like she didn’t belong (which, not to sound sexist, but she didn’t) and it ruffled some PC feathers.
yea, hes always giving new players help, even LPGA chicks like paula creamer and christina kim. plus, John Daly says hes his favorite guy to play with, so he can’t be THAT big of a dick.
but phil hates him because vijay has kinda been a dick about the rules in the past. and because him and tiger always get over competitive, it always makes him look like the jerk because everyone loves tiger.
plus, hes THE best player to be in TW for xbox.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:08 PM
if only he could putt tho, hed still be on every leaderboard.