4 tied at top at Northern Trust
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Dustin Johnson is part of a four-way tie with Jhonattan Vegas, Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth.
OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. — Two swings cost Dustin Johnson the lead. It wasn’t long before Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler caught up to him in The Northern Trust, setting up a weekend of star power in the opening FedEx Cup playoff event.
Johnson, finally looking like the No. 1 player who looked unstoppable in the spring, appeared on the verge of building a big lead at Glen Oaks Club until consecutive tee shots wound up on the wrong holes and forced him to scramble just to escape with bogey.
Fowler made up a five-shot deficit in six holes playing alongside Johnson, making a 15-foot birdie on the last hole for a 66 to join Johnson and Jhonattan Vegas (65) atop the leaderboard. And then Spieth put together a stretch Friday afternoon reminiscent of his British Open victory, minus a shot from the driving range, in a 65.
Spieth began the back nine with five straight birdies, matching his longest birdie streak on the PGA Tour. It ended with a bogey on the
Northern Trust At Glen Oaks Club Old Westbury, N.Y. Purse: $8.75 million Yardage: 7,346; Par 70
Second Round Jhonattan Vegas Dustin Johnson Rickie Fowler Jordan Spieth Matt Kuchar Bubba Watson Jon Rahm Justin Rose Russell Henley Patrick Reed Paul Casey Patrick Cantlay Chez Reavie Xander Schauffele Daniel Berger Justin Thomas Camilo Villegas Harold Varner III Martin Laird Pat Perez Whee Kim 69-65—134 65-69—134 68-66—134 69-65—134 71-64—135 67-68—135 68-68—136 68-68—136 64-72—136 70-67—137 69-68—137 67-70—137 69-68—137 71-66—137 69-68—137 68-69—137 66-71—137 67-70—137 69-69—138 70-68—138 69-69—138
par-3 15th when his tee shot nearly found the water, but then he answered with a 40foot birdie putt up the slope on the 16th.
Even without his best year with his best club, Spieth has won three times and captured the third leg of the Grand Slam. But his putter doesn’t leave him for long.
“Putter has been streaky for me this summer, which is File, Chris O’Meara / The Associated Press better than just kind of notso-great, which it was before that,” he said. “So I’ve been able to mentally use one or two good putts to make me feel like I’m putting awesome.
“I got on the good side of the streak on the back nine today.”
Spieth made pars from the bunkers on the last two holes to join the others at 6-under 134.
He wasn’t alone in running off a string of birdies. Matt Kuchar looked as though he might miss the cut until his caddie encourage him to try to get back to even par. Kuchar ran off four straight birdies and kept right on rolling, ending his round of 64 with eight birdies on the last 10 holes.
Kuchar and two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson (68) were one shot out of the lead.
Watson is at No. 113 in the FedEx Cup, and only the top 100 after The Northern Trust advance to the next playoff event at the TPC Boston. Watson says he won’t play the rest of the year once he is eliminated. A big finish this week could delay that another month, a nice problem to have.
LAS VEGAS — Conor McGregor has been kept pretty much under wraps ever since his fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr. was announced, emerging occasionally to trash Mayweather only to disappear again behind the closed doors of the UFC training center.
It’s not by accident. The biggest selling point of the spectacle that is tonight’s 154-pound fight is the unknown. Is McGregor good enough to land a big punch on Mayweather? Did he acquire enough boxing skills in just a few short months to make what should be a lopsided fight competitive? Inquiring minds want to know, and there are enough of them to make this the most watched fight in history. Some 50 million people in the U.S. alone are expected to gather with friends and family to see it all unfold.
“I will be the king of both sports,” McGregor crowed. “I’m already the king of fighting, I’ll soon be the king of boxing.”
Not so fast, said Mayweather, who comes from a boxing family and famously began throwing punches before he could walk.
“After 21 years I’ve been hit with everything and I’m still right here,” Mayweather said. “If you give it you must be able to take it.”
It’s a fight that really makes no sense other than millions of people want to watch it. But the economics of the fight wouldn’t make any sense, either, if people saw McGregor — the UFC star who has never boxed professionally — in action and decided he just wasn’t good enough to be in the ring with a fighter like Mayweather.
No mystique, no 5 million buys on Showtime pay-per-view. That’s why there was never any chance of McGregor having a tuneup fight.
And that is why the only boxing anyone outside McGregor’s inner circle has seen was him hitting the heavy bag in a comical media day performance and a few seconds of a UFC clip purportedly showing him knocking down Showtime announcer and former fighter Paulie Malignaggi.