MELBOURNE, Australia — Defending champion Adam Scott stayed in contention at the Australian Masters on Friday with a 4-under 68 to leave him six shots off the lead after two rounds at Metropolitan Golf Club.

Leader Michael Wright shot a 68 Friday for a 36-hole total of 9-under 135, two strokes ahead of fellow Australian Paul Spargo on a crowded leaderboard.

Scott, who was tied for 12th, has won the last two Australian Masters, also at Melbourne sand-belt courses – Royal Melbourne last year and Kingston Heath in 2012.

His playing partner, 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, was five strokes behind after a 71.

Canada’s Riley Wheeldon, who finished as the runner up for the 2013 PGA Tour of Canada’s Order of Merit, backed up his opening round 71 with a 2-under par 70 on Friday.  He is tied with Scott for 12th place at -3.

All three Americans made the cut – Kyle Stanley was 2 under after a 73, Boo Weekly (72) was even and Zac Blair (75) was 1 over.

Scott birdied three of four holes on the front nine, but was frustrated by poor approaches with wedges on the back nine.

“There were some positive signs early, some putts went in on the front, and I feel like I created some chances,” Scott said. “It was a bit slow on the back nine, I was disappointed. I have been working on a few things with the wedges, and I may have more work to do.”

The 40-year-old Wright, who has won three second-tier Australasian PGA events, said he wasn’t worried about the players behind him, including Scott.

“I’m not concerned what he’s doing,” Wright said. “Obviously he’s a fantastic player and I would expect him to play well over the weekend, but I expect myself to play well, too.”

Earlier Friday, Golf Australia championship director Trevor Herden said Scott would not be paired with No. 1 Rory McIlroy over the first two rounds of the Australian Open next week at The Australian in Sydney.

McIlroy birdied the 18th hole at Royal Sydney last year to win the title and prevent No. 2 Scott from winning the so-called Australian “Triple Crown” – the Masters, PGA and Open.

Scott said two weeks ago he’d like to be paired with McIlroy over the opening rounds.

“It’s very tempting, but there are several considerations when pairing the strongest world-class players,” Herden said. “Just like all the major championships do, we will spread out the superstars across the draw to ensure as many people as possible see them.”

There’s a fellow at my club—let’s call him Fred (as that is his name)—who, thanks to an early retirement, has spent the past several winters in Florida. He plays at least three times a week down there. When our club reopens in the spring, his game hasn’t lost a beat. And speaking of “beat,” that’s what he does to the rest of us poor souls who haven’t swung a club all winter.

Not that I am bitter—envious definitely, but not bitter—but despite the fact his game in the spring is at least as good as when he headed south, he does not post a single score during his winter hiatus. Asked why, he always says that it is too confusing and difficult to post in the U.S.

Hang on a sec, Fred. Craig Loughry begs to differ.

Loughry, Golf Canada’s Director of Handicap and Course Rating, points out that scores posted on both sides of the border can be seamlessly linked, thanks to the International Golf Network.

“IGN is really a clearinghouse for all the state, regional and provincial golf associations to help organize all the vendors of the various handicapping systems, including the Golf Canada Score Centre, the USGA’s GHIN system, and all the rest. So when your score is posted in the U.S., it goes through this ‘clearinghouse’ and loops back to your home course in Canada, and vice versa.”

How does it work?

If you are lucky enough to belong to a club in Canada and another in the U.S., you simply post your score at whichever club you are playing. Before you take off, have your records linked by arranging it through your club or you can call your provincial golf association or Golf Canada. They’ll do the rest. It’s just that simple.

But it works just as easily even if you are down south for only a couple of weeks. “You don’t have to be a member at a U.S. club to post your scores while you are in the U.S.,” Loughry says.”You can post as a guest at the course’s handicap terminal as long as they are part of their state association. “

In both cases, Loughry says, “it’s like having your home club handicap terminal wherever you go.”

To make it even easier to post scores (Fred, are you paying attention?), Golf Canada has a pretty slick mobile application. The mobile-friendly app can be found here.

So here’s the message: Post your scores! All your scores! No matter where you play! To learn more, click here.

If you are a member of a club, it is your responsibility to post all your scores. Essentially, you are one of the partners entrusted with the integrity of the handicap system. Consider yourself a foot soldier in the battle against sandbagging. After all, “peer review” is the essence of the handicap system.

If you have a concern with an individual or with the administration of handicapping at your club, you can contact your provincial association. They will look into the situation and rectify it.

In a proactive move, the Golf Association of Ontario (GAO) has initiated random audits of handicaps at a cross-section of its member clubs. The results of these audits are then shared with all GAO member clubs. In extreme cases, offending clubs may have the privilege of issuing handicaps suspended.

As for me, I will be keeping an eye on Fred and his ilk through Golf Canada’s verification tool until our club reopens in the spring. After all, what else do I have to do during our interminable winter?

But, like I said, I’m not bitter.

NAPLES, Fla. – Stacy Lewis was three shots out of the lead Thursday and one step closer to the largest payoff in women’s golf at the CME Group Tour Championship.

Lewis overcame the kind of tension she typically feels on the weekend at majors. She held it together with her short game, made a 25-foot eagle putt late in her opening round and wound up with a 3-under 69 to trail Julieta Granada by three shots.

“It’s going to be a long week if we’re feeling that on Thursday,” Lewis said.

There are two tournaments in one at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort.

Granada played bogey-free in a tough wind on the Tiburon Course for a 66 that gave her a two-shot lead over Sandra Gal in the LPGA Tour’s final tournament.

The other event is the Race to CME Globe, which pays a $1 million bonus to the winner. Only the top nine players in the standings can win it, and Granada isn’t one of them. She still hopes to close out the season with her first victory in eight years.

The top three players – Lewis, Inbee Park and 17-year-old Lydia Ko – need only to win the tournament for the $1 million bonus. Lewis is atop the standings, so finishing ahead of the other two is a good spot to be. Park and Ko each shot 71.

“I think everybody is thinking about the $1 million,” Park said.

It certainly showed at the start, especially when Lewis sent her opening tee shot well to the right. She recovered well and nearly holed a bunker shot for birdie.

Conditions were tough enough that only five players broke 70, and 19 of the 69 in the field broke par.

Lewis surged ahead with a hybrid from 217 yards that finished pin-high at the back of the green on the par-5 17th, and she lightly pumped her fist when it fell for eagle.

All week long, the chatter has been about everything at stake at the Tour Championship. Along with the $1 million bonus, Lewis or Park could take home all the significant awards on the LPGA Tour – player of the year, Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average and the money title.

“It’s one good round,” Lewis said. “We’ve got a long, long way to go.”

Granada knows what it’s like to be an instant millionaire. She was a 20-year-old rookie in 2006 when she captured the ADT Championship, which at the time was turned into a winner-take-all extravaganza. That remains her only LPGA victory.

Granada is No. 24 in the standings, though there is plenty on the line at a tournament that still pays $500,000.

“I think all the girls that have a chance, they know what they’re doing out there,” Granada said. “They’re tough and they’re good players, so they will just keep playing their game. This course is a good finish, especially with 17 being a reachable par 5.”

Of the top nine in the standings who have a mathematical shot at the $1 million, only three failed to break par. Defending champion Shanshan Feng (No. 6) and Karrie Webb (No. 9) each had a 74, while Anna Nordqvist (No. 7) shot 77.

So Yeon Ryu (No. 5) had a 70. U.S. Women’s Open champion Michelle Wie, who is fourth in the standings, opened with two early birdies and was in good shape until a double bogey from a bunker on No. 16 and a bogey on the 17th, which felt like giving up two shots to the field. She was at 72.

Lewis thought she easily could have been 3 over through three holes, so toiling for pars at least calmed her down for a challenging day.

“Those first three or four holes, my swing was fine. I just wasn’t trusting what I was doing,” Lewis said. “You’re worried about making a mistake or a big number. That was the hardest part. … I don’t know if Lydia quite understands all that’s going on, but you could see it in Inbee and probably in me, too. We both played some tentative golf today, and hopefully, we can both free it up as we go throughout the week.”

Park made 15 pars in what she called a “boring round” with plenty of birdie chances and very few marked on her card. Just like Lewis, though, the five-time major champion didn’t shoot herself out of the tournament.

“Just happy that I still have a chance to win everything,” Park said. “I’m going to play very hard the next three days.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Top-ranked Rory McIlroy returned from a six-week absence to shoot a 6-under 66 for a share of the lead on the first day of the season-ending DP World Tour Championship on Thursday.

McIlroy birdied four of his opening five holes and then two of the last four to join Irishman Shane Lowry at the top of the leaderboard at the Earth Course at Jumeriah Estates Resort.

“The way I played it should have been five birdies in the first five holes,” he said. “It was a great way to start. You never expect to start like that, but I’ve been hitting the ball well for the last couple of weeks that I’ve been practicing and it was just a matter of trying to take that good range play on to the course, and I was able to do that today, which I’m really happy about.”

McIlroy has been in Dubai for the better part of two weeks after electing not to contest any of the opening three events on the Tour’s Final Four Series.

He played in the Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda but his Dubai round is a first competitive effort on tour since shooting a final round 68 for a share of second place last month in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

“I played the two days at the PGA Grand Slam but I wouldn’t really call that competitive,” he said. “So the last shot that I hit was St. Andrews I guess, was my last competitive shot. So I was really looking forward to just getting out there and feeling what it was like again. Yeah, I was excited.”

Lowry arrived in Dubai fresh off the disappointment of finishing in 25th place in last week’s Turkish Airlines Open. Ranked No. 52, the Dubliner is hoping to finish inside the top 50 and with an exemption to enter all four majors in 2015.

“Last Sunday was a very difficult day for me as for the last 12 holes I couldn’t wait to get off the golf course and come here to Dubai,” he said. “Once I got here on Monday, I was fine as I had put myself into contention which is a positive I can look at from last week.”

Scotland’s Richie Ramsay and Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen share third place after rounds of 67.

NAPLES, Fla. — The LPGA Tour added one new tournament and one big sponsor.

Along with releasing another strong schedule for 2015, the LPGA Tour announced Tuesday that All Nippon Airways has signed a five-year deal to be the title sponsor of the first major championship of the year in the California desert.

The ANA Inspiration replaces the Kraft Nabisco Championship in name only. Still intact are the traditions at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, from Dinah Shore’s name on the trophy to the winner jumping in Poppy’s Pond and wearing a white robe.

“I think most fans of not just the LPGA but of golf and sport in general know when they watch that event that this is the event where the winner jumps in the lake,” said Karrie Webb, a two-time winner of that major. “I think it’s very important that we stay at Mission Hills, and another reason why we’re glad ANA was happy to come to Rancho Mirage.”

The purse will increase to $2.5 million next year, and is expected to go to at least $3 million by the end of the contract.

It was the second major in which the LPGA Tour was able to replace a title sponsor. Wegmans ended its sponsorship with the LPGA Championship, and the tour joined with the PGA of America to create the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

Only a few years ago, the LPGA Tour had a 23-tournament schedule.

Now it is up to 33 tournaments, which doesn’t include the Solheim Cup that will be played in Germany next September.

The LPGA Tour added one tournament to its schedule – the Coates Golf Championship, which will be played in Ocala, Florida the last week in January. That gives the LPGA Tour a Florida tournament in January for the first time since 2001.

That will be followed by the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic, meaning players have two tournaments before its three-week Asia and Australia swing.

“We wanted to make sure that our U.S. fan base and media connected with us before we went to Australia, Thailand and Singapore, which we didn’t do a few years back,” Commissioner Mike Whan said.

The women’s majors still are up against the men. The ANA Inspiration is a week before the Masters. The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is the week before the U.S. Open. And the U.S. Women’s Open is a week before the men play the British Open at St. Andrews.

The LPGA has a six-week swing through Asia at the end of the year, as usual, before winding up with the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico and the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.

The 2015 LPGA schedule includes two stops in Canada. The Manulife LPGA Classic will head to a new venue in 2015, being contested June 3-7 at Whistle Bear Golf Club in Cambridge, Ont. The Canadian Pacific Women’s Open, conducted by Golf Canada, will head to The Vancouver Golf Club in Coquitlam, B.C. August 17-23.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Defending champion Adam Scott struggled in the blustery conditions at Metropolitan Golf Club on Thursday for a 1-over 73, six strokes behind a group of four of his countrymen who led the Australian Masters by a stroke after the first round.

Scott, who won the Masters the past two years at other sand-belt courses – Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath – began play on the back nine Thursday and shot 38, including a double-bogey on the 18th after his approach found a bunker. But an eagle on the par-5 sixth helped move him back up the leaderboard.

“A strong northerly (wind) from the get-go was always going to make it tough,” Scott said. “I played pretty well but didn’t take any of my chances. I’m a little behind the eight-ball at the moment but it’s nothing a good round tomorrow won’t fix.”

Australians Michael Wright, Stephen Allan, Steven Bowditch and amateur Todd Sinnott shot 67s to share the lead.

Bowditch, who won the Texas Open in March for his first U.S. PGA Tour win, had the outright lead until making bogey on his last hole.

“I knew I’ve been playing OK,” said Bowditch, who also finished second in last month’s Frys.com Open. “I’ve been a bit sort of up and down with my putting but my game itself seems to be pretty consistent over the last sort of two years.”

Geoff Ogilvy shot 69 and was in a group tied for seventh with American Kyle Stanley. Americans Zac Blair (70) and Boo Weekley (72) were just behind them.

Ogilvy, who grew up in Melbourne and knows all about the vagaries of the city’s weather, said he was prepared for a challenging day.

“That’s about as tough as Melbourne can provide weather-wise,” he said. “The early tee time, you see the forecast last night, northerly, you’re like hopefully it doesn’t start picking up and we get a few holes without it coming, but it was windy from the first hole. But I hit the ball better and better as the day went on.”

Wright said it was like the “wild west” but the wind suited his game, with back-to-back birdies on the eighth and ninth holes.

“It was brutal out there,” the 40-year-old Brisbane golfer said. “I hit the ball underground, really low, so it’s suits me to a tee.”

Canada’s Riley Wheeldon opened with a 1-under 71 and sits tied for 24th after round 1.

FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. – Matt Peavoy captured the Titleist & FootJoy PGA Club Professional Championship of Canada after making par on the first playoff hole at SunRidge Canyon Golf Club.

The head teaching professional at Heron Landing Golf Club in Peterborough, Ont., outlasted Alberta’s Scott Allred en route to his first PGA of Canada national championship.

“I’ve been chasing what I call the PGA of Canada majors for 15 years and to win is something really special,” Peavoy said.

The 35-year-old put together rounds of 72-74-69 for a three-day total of 2-over-par 215 at the challenging SunRidge Canyon Golf Club. Peavoy admitted lady luck was on his side this week after starting the championship with three bogeys thru the first six holes.

“There’s no doubt I had luck on my side. I hit some balls in the desert this week and it hits a rock or cactus, takes a good kick and the next thing you know I’m back in play,” Peavoy said.

With the win, Peavoy collects $12,000 as well as 45 PGA of Canada Player Rankings points.

For the second time since 2011, Allred finishes second at the PGA Club Professional Championship after failing to convert a four-foot par putt on the 54th hole. Second round leader Dan Greenwood -who shot a tournament low round of 65 on day No. 2- finished third alone.

Two-time PGA Club Professional Championship of Canada winner Danny King, 2014 PGA Championship of Canada winner Dave Levesque, Kevin Maxwell, Ron Kenesky and 1990 PGA Assistants’ Championship of Canada winner Randy Robb. Doug Morgan and Scott Johnson rounded out the top 10.

This year’s PGA Club Professional Championship of Canada field of 109 players featured eight past champions and 41 of the top 100 golfers from the PGA of Canada Player Rankings presented by RBC.

For the full leaderboard, click here.

Tom Doak is likely most familiar to Canadians for the integral role he played in the reconstruction of St. Georges Golf Club in 2014.

Recognized as one of the preeminent golf course architects in the world, the Pete Dye disciple has designed some of the world’s most famous golf courses including Ballyneal in Colorado and Pacific Dunes in Oregon.

Recently, however, it was one of Doak’s lesser-known tracks which has made headlines in the golfing world.

Featured in a golf.com article was the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch, an unconventional and minimalist course that, to this day, remains a secret to many of the game’s biggest fanatics.

Just north of the Bandon Dunes Resort, overhanging the Pacific coastline, the track has undergone various aesthetic modifications since its design in 2002, but remains true to the character and vision that Doak and co-founders Mike Keiser and Phil Friedmann has initially intended.

“A simple idea, with complicated results, that had to be executed simply,” said Doak, describing the Sheep Ranch’s construction to golf.com in a recent interview. “It reshaped my idea of what was possible in golf course design.”

The course can be aptly described as a hybrid between a gigantic, all-encompassing practice facility and a leisurely round of golf that emphasizes choosing one’s own adventure.

Dubbed by those who have played it as golf’s “Area 51”, the design consists of 13 greens — labeled A through M — that are scattered across the property.

(The Sheep Ranch’s “J” green, tucked away on a cliff-side peninsula)

There is no clear instruction of the proper order to tackle the course, other than a haphazard array of arrows on the Sheep Ranch’s scorecard.

“The suggested routing is something I argued strongly against,” said Doak in the above mentioned interview. “We only wanted to give people a ‘mileage chart’ from every green to every other green, and turn them loose, with possibly a few suggestions as to what were the better holes.”

(Most of the track overlooks the Pacific coast)

Pacing issues do not exist at the Sheep Ranch because patrons always have the course to themselves. According to the article, there are usually between one and two groups slated to play the track on any given day.

To arrange a tee time, one must contact caretaker Greg Harless, who handles both the greens keeping and pro shop duties on the premises, including letting golfers onto the grounds and directing them to the first tee’s general whereabouts.

Unlike every other golf course in history, the Sheep Ranch is intentionally closed during the summer months to save on irrigation and maintenance expenses.

Tiger Woods criticized Hall of Fame golf writer Dan Jenkins on Tuesday for a parody in which Jenkins fakes an interview with him and covers topics from his reputation as a bad tipper to his failed marriage to his six-year drought in the majors.

The online headline of the Golf Digest column is “My (Fake) Interview with Tiger,” with an asterisk to add, “Or how it plays out in my mind.” The print edition of the magazine has “fake” in parentheses on the cover, but not in the headline above the column.

Woods rarely goes public with his criticism of stories written about him. But on Tuesday, he wrote a guest column for Derek Jeter’s new website, http://www.theplayerstribune.com , which is a forum for athletes to connect directly with fans. The title of Woods’ column was “Not True, Not Funny.”

He said the fake interview “fails as parody, and is really more like grudge-fueled piece of character assassination.”

Jenkins, who has been covering the majors for more than 60 years, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011. While he has covered all the greats dating to Ben Hogan, he never was granted a private interview with the 14-time major champion early in Woods’ career.

“I like to think I have a good sense of humor, and that I’m more than willing to laugh at myself,” Woods wrote. “I’ve been playing golf for a long time, 20 years on the PGA Tour. I’ve given lots of interviews to journalists in all that time, more than I could count, and some have been good and some not so much. … But this concocted article was below the belt.

“Good-natured satire is one thing, but no fair-minded writer would put someone in the position of having to publicly deny that he mistreats his friends, takes pleasure in firing people and stiffs on tips – and a lot of other slurs, too.”

Jenkins said on Twitter after Woods’ response, “My next column for Tiger: defining parody and satire. I thought I let him off easy.” He declined further comment.

In the “fake” interview, Jenkins asked why Woods hasn’t fired longtime agent Mark Steinberg.

Q: Why haven’t you fired Steiny, by the way? You’ve fired everybody else. …

A: I’ll probably get around to it. I like to fire people. It gives me something to do when I’m not shaping my shots.

Jenkins also had a series of questions related to Woods crashing his car into a fire hydrant on Thanksgiving night in 2009 at the onset of revelations that he had multiple extramarital affairs.

Q: You haven’t talked about it, but after all of those New York Post front pages during the scandal, what’s the moral of your story?

A: That’s easy. Don’t get caught.

Q: You named your yacht Privacy. Because you’re a worldwide celebrity, do you really expect and demand privacy?

A: I thought about renaming it Serenity, but that pretty much went out the door when the 9-iron hit the window of the Escalade.

Jenkins served up a couple of phony questions on Woods’ reputation as a bad tipper.

Q: I don’t get it. For a guy who can certainly afford it, you’ve become famous for being a bad tipper. It’s almost like you take pride in it.

A: I just don’t understand why you’re supposed to tip people for doing a job they’re already getting paid to do.

Q: In many cases tips are expected to be part of their salary.

A: So let `em go find a better job.

Woods was a playing editor for Golf Digest for 13 years, a relationship that began after his historic victory in the 1997 Masters. Woods and the magazine ended the deal in January 2011 when they couldn’t agree on how many hours Woods should devote.

In his guest column, Woods said of Jenkins, “Frustration or resentment because I have not been more available to him should not give him a license for an underhanded attack on me as an athlete, as a professional and as a person.”

“I guess Golf Digest’s editors believe this is a good way to sell more magazines,” Woods wrote. “I’ll bet their readers don’t think so. Funny they didn’t think this poorly of me when I worked with the magazine. I have to say I was surprised when I saw this piece came from Jenkins, who is one of the most distinguished golf writers out there.”

Woods said he has let “plenty of things slide” during his career, but not this one.

“The sheer nastiness of this attack, the photos and how it put false words in my mouth just had to be confronted,” he said.

Woods has not played since he missed the cut at the PGA Championship. He had back surgery a week before the Masters and missed three months in the summer, and then took three more months to rebuild his strength. He is scheduled to return Dec. 4 at his Hero World Challenge in Florida.

Woods included a link to the letter sent to Golf Digest by Steinberg and spokesman Glenn Greenspan that asks for a written apology.

“Read it, and the original piece if you have to, and decide for yourself what’s fair,” Woods wrote in the column.

It is with great sadness that Golf Canada, Alberta Golf and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame mourns the loss of R. Keith Alexander, who passed away Wednesday, November 12, 2014 at the age of 84.

In further sadness, the Alexander family is also mourning the loss of Keith’s wife Vanessa who passed away one day earlier on Remembrance Day, Tuesday November 11, 2014.

Born July 23, 1930 in Vulcan, Alta., Keith Alexander was an accomplished Canadian golfer who took his passion for and commitment to the sport from the golf course to the boardroom.

The 1960 Canadian Men’s Amateur champion and six-time Alberta Men’s Amateur champion went on to win the 1992 Senior Golf Championship of Canada before turning professional and focusing his attention on the Senior PGA Tour in 1993.

During his amateur playing career, he represented Canada at numerous international competitions including six times at the World Amateur Team Championship (1960, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1972, and 1976) and five times in the America’s Cup Team Matches (1960, 1961, 1963, 1965, and 1967).

A long-time member at the Calgary Golf and Country Club, he was a six-time Alberta Men’s Amateur champion (1957, 1964, 1966, 1977, 1978, 1981), represented the province on 26 occasions in Interprovincial Team play and won a pair of Alberta Open titles (1967, 1980).

As an administrator and volunteer, Alexander was an instrumental part of the Alberta Golf Association (now Alberta Golf) from 1968 through 1982, serving as President of the Association in 1977.

Through his affiliation with the Alberta Golf Association, Alexander was a driving force working with the provincial government in the development of Kananaskis, the Robert Trent Jones designed, 36-hole golf course in Alberta’s Kananaskis country.

Off the golf course, he was a member of the Alberta Legislative Assembly from 1979 until November 1985 when he resigned to allow Premier Don Getty to have a seat in the Legislature.

Alexander’s contributions to the game of golf were honoured in 1986 with induction into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Keith was also an inductee of the Alberta Golf Hall of Fame and the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, November 22, 2014 at First Alliance Church, 12345 – 40^th St. SE Calgary at 11:00 am.