Doral bares its wet teeth
Water, rain get best of field as storms delay first round.
Tiger Woods made it through just 10 holes Thursday — this time because of the weather, not his back.
The debut of the new Blue Monster, and the return of Woods, received an incomplete grade Thursday when the opening round of the Cadillac Championship was halted more than two hours because of menacing thunderstorms in Doral, Fla.
Harris English was among just six players who finished the round, hitting 5-iron into the par-3 ninth hole and rolling in a 45-foot birdie putt for a 3-under 69.
The golf course and the world’s No. 1 player showed enough.
Woods, who walked off after 13 holes Sunday in the Honda Classic because of lower back pain and spasms, said he warmed up well and felt good during the delay. His golf didn’t look all that great. He was 2-over par through 10 holes .
“I’m ready to go back out tomorrow and play well,” he said.
Trump National Doral showed plenty of bite on a windy, cloudy afternoon. Brett Rumford began his round by hitting four shots before he put one in play. Three went into the water on the par5 10th, and he started out with an 11.
“Mr. Trump wanted a very tough test on the Blue Monster, and I think that’s what he got,” English said.
Former Texas star Jordan Spieth already had three bogeys and a double bogey on the par-5 12th hole. He countered with five birdies and was even par through 15 holes. Just 19 players were under par when the round was stopped.
The course average was at 73.8.
PGA Tour:
Brian Stuard birdied seven of his first 12 holes in windy conditions to take the first-round lead in the Puerto Rico Open in Rio Grande. Stuard finished with a 6-under 66. Jason Gore and Danny Lee shot 67s, while Y.E. Yang was another stroke back.
ByJim Fitzgerald NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Now that he’s retired, Mariano Rivera says he misses spring training and his Yankees teammates, but baseball doesn’t compare to doing God’s work.
“The baseball field is one thing. We won championships,” Rivera said Thursday after the dedication of a once-crumbling church his foundation restored. “But this is totally on another level. This is to hopefully bring families closer to the Lord. ... Changing people’s lives, that’s what counts.”
The legendary reliever’s foundation poured about $3 million into the 107-year-old church for Refugio de Esperanza, or Refuge of Hope, the Pentecostal Christian congregation led by his wife, Clara.
“It has been a privilege to fulfill a dream that God put in our hearts,” Rivera told the crowd of about 350 during an exuberant, bilingual, musicand-Scripture-filled celebration. Sunlight, filtered through new stained glass windows, provided a golden glow beneath the church’s old but restored ceiling timbers.
Asked if the rescue of the church in downtown New Rochelle, about 6 miles north of Yan- kee Stadium, should be added to his record 652 saves, Rivera said, “You could say that. This was the big one.”
Three years ago, the building was on the verge of collapse and was being by the police department next door to store evidence. That was when Rivera, whose home had been serving as the diverse congregation’s meeting place, was looking for a bigger space.
The former North Avenue Presbyterian Church had been vacant since the 1970s and was badly in need of repair.
“It was in bad shape but I saw a beauty be- yond that,” Rivera said. “God gave us the inspiration and the desire to really renovate it and make it the thing it is. It wasn’t me. It was the Lord.”
Former City Councilman Joe Fosina, a longtime friend of Rivera who showed him the gray stone church, looked around the new space Thursday and said, “To come so far so quickly, it’s amazing.”
The city had taken over the building, and after paying to have the collapsing bell tower taken down, agreed to sell the building to Rivera for $1 — and his promise to rehabilitate it. One op- ponent at the time, City Councilman Louis Trangucci, said Wednesday he still feels the city should have tried to get more for the property. But he said the project has only enhanced the area “and I support what Mariano has done with the church.”
Clara Rivera, speaking Spanish with a translator next to her, told the congregation, “We have prayed, we have worked and patiently we have waited for the exact moment when God has given the order to be here in this building. On this day, it now becomes a reality.”