11/14/2008 - Guadalajara, Mexico (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Angela Stanford continued her recent hot streak with a six-under 66 on Friday that gave her the second-round lead at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational.
Stanford, on the heels of four consecutive top-five finishes that started with a win in September, stood at 10-under-par 134 for a two-shot advantage over McDonald's LPGA champion and world No. 2 Yani Tseng (68).
Meena Lee (69) was in third place at six-under 138 and Karen Stupples (71) was the only other player within five shots of Stanford at five-under 139.
Annika Sorenstam, one of eight first-round co-leaders, managed just a 72 on Friday to lead a group of six players tied for fifth place at four-under 140.
Ochoa, hosting a tournament for the first time, continued to underwhelm with a 71 that left her 10 shots back at even-par 144. The women's world No. 1 -- by all accounts a gracious host -- said she was enjoying her time at her home course, Guadalajara Country Club.
"I just need to make more birdies," she said.
Stanford collected birdies at the right time to move in front of the elite 36- player field. After posting a 68 in the first round, she came out and made four birdies on her front nine Friday.
A close approach at No. 7 and a near-perfect pitch at No. 9 -- both within two feet -- set up her last two birdies on the front nine and gave Stanford a two- stroke lead around the turn.
Her 12-foot birdie putt at the 11th hole produced a four-shot advantage as players behind her took a step back, but Stanford found trouble at the 12th and walked off with her only bogey of the round.
Her lead trimmed to just one stroke by a Nicole Castrale eagle at the 10th -- Castrale would later fade with a trio of bogeys -- Stanford came back with a pair of birdies that increased her cushion to three.
She curled in a long birdie putt at the par-three 13th, rolled in a five- footer at the 14th, then finished the round with four consecutive pars for her two-shot lead.
It marked the second time this season, and the fifth time in her career, that Stanford held the second round lead on the LPGA Tour.
"We have the greatest players in the world here, so I know that I have to keep going," said Stanford, who picked up her second career win Sept. 14 at the Bell Micro LPGA Classic.
Stanford said her recent hot streak has her confidence "through the roof."
"I'm having so much fun hitting the golf ball right now. That's a lot of it," she said. "I'm not really thinking about results."
Sorenstam was tied for second place after she holed a three-foot birdie putt at the 14th, but she went on to bogey three of the last four holes to fall six shots off the pace.
"I'm very happy with the way I played, I just didn't finish today," said Sorenstam.
The third-ranked Swede, nearing her scheduled retirement at the end of the season, is nevertheless still in the hunt with 36 holes remaining. There are only three players between herself and the lead.
"It is encouraging. And we have two more days," said Sorenstam. "Anything can happen."
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Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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