Appleby leader in delayed event

Sung Ah Yim charged to the top with a 64 in the LPGA event.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HUMBLE, Texas -- Stuart Appleby took a one-stroke lead over Greg Owen in the suspended second round of the Shell Houston Open, finishing 16 bogey-free holes in 5 under to push his two-day total to 11 under.
Appleby, the first-round leader, started on the back nine and moved to 11 under with a birdie on No. 6. The Australian was one of 44 players who had to return to the course early today to finish the round.
A predawn storm dumped five-eighths of an inch of rain at The Tournament Course at Redstone, delaying the start of the second round 21/2 hours.
Sought help
A month ago, a three-putt from 3 feet cost Owen a chance to win at Bay Hill. Owen talked to noted sports psychologist Bob Rotella shortly after the gaffe.
Rotella's advice?
"Concentrate on everything you did right," Owen said. "The majority of the things were all positive."
The 34-year-old Englishman had plenty of those on Friday, too. He made a 3-foot birdie putt on 13, holed a bunker shot on the par-3 14th and finished the round with a bending 20-footer on the difficult 18th.
"I'm just trying to have a good time and I'm playing pretty well, which helps," Owen said. "Just trying to see the good shots more than the bad shots."
Appleby started his round a half-hour later. Like Owen, Appleby birdied the two par 5s on the back nine. The Australian tacked on two more birdies as the sun was setting to retake the outright lead.
LPGA
STOCKBRIDGE, Ga. -- Karrie Webb followed her win in the first major of the year with a second straight 5-under 67, leaving the resurgent Australian star two strokes off the lead in the Florida's Natural Charity Championship.
Sung Ah Yim charged to the top with a 64 at Eagle's Landing Country Club south of Atlanta, pushing her 36-hole total to a 12-under 132. Two fellow South Koreans were right on her heels -- 20-year-old Jee Young Lee (65) was 11 under, and Hee-Won Han (64) was tied with Webb at 134.
Defending tournament champion Annika Sorenstam was right in the thick of things with a 69 that left her three strokes back. But she's unlikely to run away from the field as she did in 2005, when she coasted to a 10-stroke victory.
Webb, the only player other than Sorenstam to be ranked No. 1 in the world over the last 11 years, is coming off a thrilling victory in the Kraft Nabisco Championship. She holed out a wedge from 116 yards to get into a playoff, then beat Lorena Ochoa.
After a three-week break in which she traveled back to Australia, Webb showed she's not jet-lagged in the least. She missed a couple of short putts, took her only bogey of the day on the par-5 13th but still matched her score from the opening day.
Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf
SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Jay Haas shot a 6-under 66 in windy conditions on The Club at Savannah Harbor to take the first-round lead in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf.
Haas, who missed the cut last weekend in the PGA Tour's Verizon Heritage, had a two-stroke lead over Mark McNulty, Tom Wargo, Jerry Pate and Gil Morgan.
Haas hit a wedge to 5 feet to set up a birdie at the first hole, chipped in for birdie at the par-5 fourth, blasted from a greenside bunker to 3 feet for birdie at No. 11 and rolled in putts of 19 and 23 feet for birdies at Nos. 14 and 15. He finished with seven birdies. His only mistake came at the par-3 third, playing at about 202 yards, when his tee shot missed the green and he missed a 12-foot putt.
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