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One week after his best finish in more than a year, Jacobson birdied the two toughest holes at Riviera on his way to a 6-under-par 65 on Friday and a share of the lead with Sang-Moon Bae going into the weekend at the Northern Trust Open at Los Angeles.
The Swede did just about everything well, from his tee shots to his iron play, just what it takes to get around the classic design of Riviera. And it helps to get a little luck, such as a 55-foot birdie putt from just off the green at No. 9 that bumped along until disappearing for an unlikely birdie.
Bae played in the morning and began with four straight birdies, all of them from tap-in range until holing a 25-foot putt on the 13th. He wound up making birdies on half of his holes in his round of 65.
Twenty players were separated by five shots. That included defending champion Bill Haas (67) and Matt Kuchar, who had a pair of double bogeys in a 73. They were four shots behind. Sergio Garcia bogeyed three of his last five holes for a 73 and was in the group at 4-under 138 that included Mickelson, Ernie Els and Adam Scott.
Zach Johnson, who won the season opener at Kapalua on Monday, opened with two bogeys before he settled into a 68. Jordan Spieth, who finished one shot behind Johnson last week in the Tournament of Champions, reached 3-under through 10 holes until he was slowed by a three-putt bogey from 20 feet on No. 12. That was the start of three bogeys in four holes and he had to settle for a 70.
Bae opened with a 7-iron to 3 feet on the opening hole, made a 25-footer for birdie on No. 3 and didn't miss a green until the 13th hole. He hit wedge to 15 feet to save par, and picked up his seventh and final birdie on the next hole.
Bae, who won his first PGA Tour event last year at the Byron Nelson Championship, is coming up on three straight weeks in Hawaii. It was too cold in South Korea to practice, so he came to the islands on Dec. 20 to practice and relax on the beach for two weeks before the Tournament of Champions.
Masters champion Adam Scott, with pro surfer Benji Weatherley filling in as his caddie, birdied his last two holes for a 67. It's not a bad start, but in these conditions, Scott realizes it needs to be better.
Gloria begins to backstroke; the muscles of her arms and legs stretch and pull. The water fills her ears and
blocks out every sound except the low hum of the pool filters and the slowly accelerating beat of her own heart.
At the wall, Gloria executes a graceful flip turn, an underwater pirouette. In one impossibly smooth motion,
she flips onto her belly, pulls forward, curls her long body into a tight ball, somersaults over, plants her feet against
the perpendicular concrete, and surges away.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes, pass and the pattern is as regular as perfectly-matched pearls
strung on a necklace: lap swim, flip turn, lap swim, flip turn, lap swim, flip turn. All the time her eyes are open,
watching the craters on the moon and the scattered stars.
Alone here in the dark, Gloria can feel the drag of the water all along the length of her body. The faster
she goes and the deeper she pulls, the harder the water pushes back against her. All day and all night, this resistance
of water on skin is the only thing she feels.
When the muscles of her arms and legs are nearly slack with exhaustion, Gloria climbs out of the pool. Inside,
she sheds her wet bathing suit and puts her nightgown back on. She slides back into bed with wet hair and Jim never
wakes. In the mornings, even though the metallic, chemical scent of chlorine is stuck to her skin, he never even
guesses she was gone.
Looking at the house, closed up and dark, Gloria decides to leave them there, sleeping peacefully, for just a
few minutes more. She slips her feet back into her sandals and moves around the car, easing all the doors open to let
in the air. Neither child stirs.
Gloria climbs the front porch steps, opens the screen and flips through her keys, hard to see in the dark.
Finally, she fits the right one into the lock and gives the front door a bump with her hip.
Gloria needs no further encouragement. She downs the remainder of her open beer and retrieves a second
from the fridge. Before the door can even fully close, she opens it again and grabs the six-pack by the empty rings.
As she exits onto the back porch, the screen door wails like a blues singer, then snaps shut behind her.
The porch lights, dim and yellow, turn the backyard into a jungle of silhouettes: sturdy live oaks and spiky
monkey grass and hydrangea bushes as big as compact cars are all black shapes against the night.
Gloria cracks open another beer. The foam bubbles out onto her fingers and she slings it onto the wood planks
of the deck. She can see the fireflies coming out now, their bright little asses flashing on and off on and off.
She just wanted to turn it off. The pressure and the knowing. It was that night that she went back in the house,
found a still-damp bathing suit hanging in the laundry room, and started swimming. Swimming and not thinking, swimming
and not knowing, swimming and substituting the drag of the water for real forward motion.
Hearing several sharp raps on the front door, Gloria takes off the towel and steps quickly into a stretchy
cover-up. She leaves the hat and pink sunglasses on as she comes down the stairs and opens the door.
Gloria smiles sheepishly and leads her children farther inside. In just a few minutes, Sammy finds not one, but
two dinosaur picture books. Becky picks a chapter book with a dolphin on the cover. Even Gloria picks up a paperback
with sand creased between the pages.
Gloria is fully awake in an instant, imagining finger-painted walls or broken toys or injuries her children have
inflicted on each other. Last month, Sammy bit Becky so hard it left marks on her arm for almost a week.
Jenna B. Morgan currently resides in Tennessee but considers herself a native of both New Jersey and
West Virginia, the state of her birth. She has an M.F.A. in Fiction from George Mason University; her work
has previously appeared in Soundings East and is forthcoming in Kestrel. Jenna is hard at work on a novel
titled Road Under Construction.
STANFORD, Calif. ? Duke University senior Amanda Blumenherst carded a one-under-par, 70, on Friday in the first round of the Stanford Intercollegiate, while the Blue Devils opened eight shots off the lead through 18 holes at the Stanford Golf Course in Palo Alto, Calif.
A native of Scottsdale, Ariz., Blumenherst produced a solid round of golf on the day as the senior parred her first 12 holes before suffering a three-putt bogey on No. 13. The three-time reigning National Player of the Year rebounded on the next three holes with a par, and two birdies.
Blumenherst finally was able to roll in a couple of putts on No. 15 and No. 16 and she drained a 12-footer and 15-footer on back-to-back holes to move to one-under-par. She collected a key up-and-down par on the tough 165-yard, par three 17 before closing with a par on No. 18. She is tied for 13th, individually, going into day two.
Mina Harigae, who is from Monterey, Calif., which is only 90 minutes away from Stanford, posted the best start of the day for the Blue Devils. The freshman rang off five straight pars before notching three consecutive birdies on No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8. She closed the front nine with a par and was three-under-par on her way to the back nine. Harigae parred the first four holes on the back and then turned in a bogey on the 14th, but came back to collect a birdie on the next hole to remain at three-under. She enters the second round tied for 28th.
The 2007 Women's Amateur Public Links (WAPL) champion, Harigae ran into a little trouble on the 17th as her tee shot came up short on the par three and could not get up and down for a bogey. She closed with another bogey on 18 to finish with a one-under-par, 70. Due to her threesome being over 14 minutes behind the group in front of them as they finished their round, Harigae's group was tagged with a one-stroke penalty and gave her an even-par score on the day.
Both Jennie Lee and Kim Donovan each turned in rounds of one-over-par, 71, on the day and are tied for 34th. Lee, who is from Henderson, Nev., collected four birdies and five bogeys on the day as she closed with an one-under-par back nine. A native of Hopkinton, Mass., Donovan posted two birdies on the front nine and ended with a one-over-par, 36, on the first nine holes as she had three bogeys and four pars as well. On the back nine, Donovan registered nine pars to close with a 72.
A product of Melbourne, Australia, Whitaker opened the round with one birdie, three bogeys and five pars on the front nine, but closed the final nine with a one-over-par ledger to finish with a 74. She enters the second round tied for 54th.
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