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Singh, Mickelson Top WGC Leaderboard

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 2, 2008

AKRON, Ohio - Without the world's No. 1 player around, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson brought some star power Friday to the final World Golf Championship of the year.

Singh twice escaped from the trees on his closing holes at Firestone and renewed his affair with a belly putter on his way to a 4-under 66 at the Bridgestone Invitational, putting his name atop the leaderboard for the first time in more than four months.

He was one shot ahead of Mickelson, who made another great escape at the end of the second round, this time holing a 20-foot par putt to finish off a 66 that put him in the final group with Singh.

Sean O'Hair, seeing immediate results from switching to a new swing coach, had a 67 and joined the group at 5-under 135 that included Lee Westwood (65), former Masters champion Zach Johnson (68) and Peter Lonard (66).

Sixteen players were within four shots of the lead.

Funk Takes Lead At Senior Open

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The Broadmoor's East Course was quite a bear Friday.

Difficult pin placements and faster, drier greens flustered the field and only five golfers managed to shoot below par, including Fred Funk, whose 1-under 69 gave him the lead at the halfway point of the U.S. Senior Open.

Funk's two-day score of 6-under 134 is two shots ahead of Eduardo Romero (69) and four ahead of Mark McNulty (70), Tom Kite (71) and John Cook (72).

Stealing the show, however, was a black bear that ambled out of the mountains in the morning and crossed the 13th fairway before checking out spectators outside the ropes.

Nobody was harmed, and neither was the bear.

"Jack Nicklaus isn't here, so I guess that's a substitute," cracked Funk.

After several minutes, the bear crawled through a drainage pipe on the ninth hole that leads to the West Course, then went through another drainage pipe and into the wilderness, leaving unnerved galleries and golfers behind.

PGA: Michelle Wie failed in her eighth attempt to make the cut on the PGA Tour, shooting a second-round 80 at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open on Friday. Parker McLachlin tied the course record with a 62 to take the lead into the clubhouse at 14-under par.

Wie was 1-over-par 73 Thursday as she attempted to become the first woman since Babe Zaharias to make the cut on the PGA Tour. But a quintuple-bogey 9 Friday helped push her to 9-over 153.

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