Holmes aces his way to early lead at Riviera

Kuchar apologizes for comments, says he will pay caddie $50,000

LOS ANGELES — In a round in which Tiger Woods kept missing short putts, J.B. Holmes took the lead because of a tee shot that needed no putting at all.

Holmes made a hole-in-one with an 8-iron on the par-3 sixth hole, followed with a birdie and wound up with an 8-under 63 for a one-shot lead over Jordan Spieth when the first round finally ended Friday.

“It was awesome to see that,” Holmes said about his ace.

The ball landed well behind the pin on the left side of the bunker and spun back some 20 feet on the rainsoaked greens of Riviera.

“Hit it exactly how I wanted it and it went in,” Holmes said. “It looked good the whole time.”

Woods didn’t start his 10th appearance at Riviera as a pro until Friday morning, and while he got off to a rough start with a pair of three-putt bogeys, he answered with four straight birdies around the turn.

But then he three-putted from long range on the 12th. The real blow was on the par-5 17th, where he missed a 20-foot birdie putt and then his 30-inch par putt missed the hole. All four bogeys were from three-putts. “I hit it well and putted awful,” Woods said. “Four three-putts is ridiculous.”

LPGA: In Adelaide, Australia, Karrie Webb had one of those moments during the Women’s Australian Open on Friday that might have made her feel like one of the weekend golfers following her behind the spectator ropes at The Grange, or watching on television.

Short-siding herself in a bunker on the par-3 14th, five-time champion Webb hit it across the green and watched it dribble into a bunker on the other side.

She ended up taking a double-bogey 5 on her way to a 74 and is seven strokes behind second-round leaders Wei-Ling Hsu and Madelene Sagstrom.

They were both at 10-under 134 in the LPGA tournament.

Former Lobo Jodi Ewart-Shadoff, who shared the first-round lead, shot a 1-over 73 and is four shots back.

KUCHAR: Matt Kuchar has apologized for what he says where insensitive comments about his caddie at the Mayakoba Classic in Mexico and says he will give him the $50,000 the caddie requested.

Kuchar’s regular caddie couldn’t make the trip to Mexico in November, so he used David Ortiz from the El Camaleon Golf Club. Kuchar won the tournament and earned $1,296,000. Ortiz received $5,000.

In an interview with golf.com, Kuchar said he did not understand why it became such a hot topic. He said, “For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really good week.”