Thomas, Fleetwood, Poulter set pace at friendly Firestone
Woods lurking five strokes back; 45 of 71 players under par
AKRON, Ohio — No one has a better scoring average Saturday on the PGA Tour than Tiger Woods, and the Bridgestone Invitational would be a good time to keep that up.
Woods might not have a choice.
Neither will Rory Mcilroy, Jason Day or anyone else wanting to keep pace.
Tommy Fleetwood took advantage of another soft day of good scoring at Firestone with a 7-under-par 63. So did PGA champion Justin Thomas, who was sharp with his putter for a 64.
They shared the lead with Ian Poulter, who had a head start with his career-low 62 and backed it up decently enough Friday with a 67.
They all played early and finished at 11-under 129.
No one could catch them, mainly because there was just enough breeze to cause just enough doubt.
Even so, 45 players from the 71man field were under par, a rarity at Firestone. Woods, whose last victory was five years ago when he won this World Golf Championship for a record eighth time, got within four shots of the lead with a tee shot to 2 feet on the par-3 12th hole.
He went 1 over the rest of the way for a 68, leaving him five shots behind.
Fleetwood, the runner-up at the U.S. Open, was most pleased to see nothing higher than 4s on his scorecard. He made it look easy, except for a few times he slightly was out of position, and hit perhaps his best shot with a 6-iron to a back-left pin that settled 3 feet below the cup.
Day, who threw away a chance to win at Firestone two years ago, didn’t make as many as he would have liked. He still had a 66 playing in the same group with Woods, and joined Kyle Stanley (68) two shots behind the leaders.
Mcilroy was another shot behind after a finishing a day of frustration with two birdies.
At Reno, Aaron Baddeley had six birdies in a bogey-free round in shifting winds at Montreaux Golf and Country Club, taking advantage of Ollie Schniederjans’ late triple bogey to take a one-point lead in the Barracuda Championship, the PGA Tour’s lone modified Stableford scoring event.
At Lytham St. Annes, England, 97th-ranked Pornanong Phatlum of Thailand shot a second straight bogey-free 5-under 67 for a one-stroke lead in the Women’s British Open. First-round leader Minjee Lee (70), Georgia Hall (68) and Mamiko Higa (69) were tied for second.
At Blaine, Minn., Jerry Smith made three late birdies to shoot a bogey-free 8-under 64 to take a two-shot lead in the 3M Championship. Peter Lonard, who made a hole-in-one on the 177-yard fourth, was tied for second with Kenny Perry, Lee Janzen and Glen Day.
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