Spieth in control after 2nd round
better than it looked and led to an eagle, Spieth seized control with a 1-under 69 that gave him a two-shot lead over Matt Kuchar going into theweekend.
Spieth turned a bogey or worse into an unlikely par by chipping in from just short of the 10th green. And he learned enough from watching TV to know that going a little long on the par-5 15th would give him a better birdie chance than playing short. So he switched from a 3-iron to a 3-wood, hit it a little off the neck and watched it run hot and fast about 100 yards along the wet turf to about18 feet away.
“I mishit the shot, which is probably why it looked so gross,” Spieth said. “I hit it low off the heel, which is easy to do when you’re trying to carve a cut. And it just ... one hop, scooted around the group of bunkers there, and then it was obviously fortunate to get all the way to the green.”
The flight of that 3-wood looked as ugly as the weather. The outcome was as bright as his chances of getting his name on another majorchampionship trophy.
Spieth was at 6-under 134. It was the 12th time he has been atop the leader board at a major, including the fourth rounds of the Masters and U.S. Open that he won in 2015. Spieth is the sole leader at a major for the first time since the third round of the 2016 Masters, when he was runner-upto Danny Willett.
“Anytime you’re in the last group on a weekend in a major ... you get nervous. And I’ll be feeling it this weekend a bit,” he said. “But I enjoy it. As long as I approach it positively and recognize that this is what you wantto feel because you’re in the position you want to be in, then the easier it is to hit solid shots and to create solid rounds.”
Kuchar played in the morning in steadily strong wind, but without rain, and pieced together a solid round until a few mistakes at the end for a 71. He was at 4-under 136, and it would have beena good bet that he would be leading with the nasty weather that arrived.
“I think that’s what people enjoy about the British Open is watching the hard wind, the rain, the guys just trying to survive out there,” Kuchar said. “Today is my day. I get to kick back in the afternoon and watch the guys just try to survive.”
He wound up watching another short-game clinic from Spieth.
Thekey to his round came in the middle, starting with a 10-foot par putt on No. 8 after he drove into a pot bunker. The biggest break came at No. 10, when the rain was pounding Royal Birkdale. Spieth hit into another pot bunker off the tee, could only advance it out sideways, and came up short of the green in light rough.
“Massive,” he said about the chip-in par. “Nothing said ‘4’ about this hole. I feel a little guilty about taking 4 on the card.”
And he wasn’t through just yet. Spieth rolled in a 35foot birdie putt across the 11th green, and then after watching Henrik Stenson’s teeshot on the par-3 12th land softly, Spieth realized he could take on the flag. He hit 7-iron to 2 feet for another birdie, and followed that with a beautiful pitch to tap-in range for par on the 13th.
Even so, his work is far fromover.
The chasing pack features U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, who failed to make a birdie but stayed in the hunt with 16 pars in a 72, and Ian Poulter with his newfound confidence, which is growing even higher with the support of the English crowd. Poulter shot70.