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Hurricane Gustav blows BMW off course

US TOUR:The remnants of Hurricane Gustav washed out the first day's play at the BMW Championship yesterday.

Officials have rescheduled the first round to be played today at Bellerive, and plan to play 36 holes tomorrow to get the event back on track for a Sunday finish.

"We've had just under three inches of rain and we're looking at upwards of four," said PGA Tour tournament director Slugger White.

"We've got a mess out there. It may be as bad as I've seen in a long time. The course has 16 miles of drainage that's having trouble putting it anywhere."

White said that the forecast for the rest of the week was good. We're looking pretty good after this gets out of here," he said.

Due to the small, 69-man field, there should be no problem playing 36 holes tomorrow.

The BMW Championship is the third of four events on the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup play-off series.

Fiji's Vijay Singh won the first two events, all but locking up the €7 million bonus awarded to the play-off winner.

CHALLENGE TOUR:One under par after his first hole and four over after his third, Ireland's Gareth Shaw staged a magnificent recovery to finish the first round of the European Challenge Tour's Dubliner Challenge back at one-under-par 70, alongside Peter O'Keefe and just two shots behind the leader, England's Rob Harris.

Shaw could have been forgiven for losing his cool after a birdie, triple-bogey, double-bogey start at the Hills Golf Club on the outskirts of Gothenburg, but he added an eagle, three birdies and a bogey to post a one-under-par 70 and join Corkman O'Keefe in a tie for fourth place.

HOME INTERNATIONALS:Ireland are within sight of clinching their first Home International title since 2003 and continuing their amazing run of success in representative contests this year.

They overwhelmed Wales 11½-3½ at Muirfield yesterday, and with Scotland springing a surprise, 10-5 victory over England, are the only country with two wins in this round-robin tournament.

This leaves them requiring only a share of the spoils with England today to secure the crown - even a narrow defeat could see them finish on top on individual points. A triumph would come on top of their successful defence of the European team title in June and the Boys victory in their international series last month.

For the second day the foundations for the success were laid in the foursomes which they won 4-1. Ireland lost only one singles when Shane Lowry went down on the last to Welsh debutant Oliver Farr and there was never any doubt about the overall result.

Jonathan Caldwell and Paul Cutler, playing in the top two matches, preserved their 100 per cent records. Caldwell, from Clandeboye, had quite a battle with Rhys Enoch and only prevailed on the last after being narrowly behind for much of the match, while Cutler was too strong for veteran Nigel Edwards and powered to a 3 and 2 win.

Michael Burns, who finishes his stint as captain at the end of the year, was delighted but not complacent about the task ahead.

"Playing England is never easy but we are fired up for the match with the team members all playing well,"said Burns.

STUDENTS:Leonardo Motta from Italy shot a third round 72 for a 54-hole total of 212 to lead by six shots from Japan's Shunsuka Sonada in the World University Championships in Sun City, South Africa.

Brendan Walton is best of the Irish on 236 after an 82, with Kevin Stack on 242 after a 77, James Patterson on 249 after a 77 and Kelan McDonagh on 257.

Marion Ricordeau from France and Caroline Rominger from Switzerland share the lead on 227 in the women's event. Niamh Kitching is eighth after a 76 for 232 with Gilian O'Leary on 243 and Danielle McVeigh on 261.