Tiger Woods make the cut, is pumped for weekend run
Luke List, Jamie Lovemark share the lead at 3-under
PALM BEACH GARDENS — The day was a delight to be watching golf on the breezy, sun-splashed Champion Course at PGA National.
For players, though, the second round of the Honda Classic was beastly Friday with a 20-25 mph east wind disrupting not only shots in the air but putts on the greens, which were fast and funky.
Still, things were going swimmingly for Tiger Woods until he became ensnared in the Bear Trap (holes 15, 16, 17) with a misadven-
ture into water and back-toback bogeys before slipping out of the clutches with a pressure-packed birdie putt.
Fans with tickets to the weekend will be relieved that Woods made the cut comfortably, checking in at 1-over par for the day and the tournament.
“The wind’s howling out there. It’s hard to make putts. So it was just a difficult day all around,” said Woods, adding, “I really played well today. It was just tough scoring. It really is hard to make birdies.”
While sizable galleries stalked Tiger around the Champion Course in the afternoon, unheralded Luke List quietly and efficiently turned in the best round of the day with a 66 in the morning. List shared the lead with Jamie Lovemark at 3-under 137 through 36 holes.
Only 10 players have shot better than par, all bunched within two strokes.
“I saw that no one is going to go anywhere out there,” Woods said. “It’s just too difficult right now for someone to go out there and shoot 63 or something like that and post themselves pretty far ahead.
“I’m right where I can win a golf tournament. You know, four [strokes] back on this golf course with 36 holes to go, I mean anybody can win this golf tournament right now. It’s wide open.”
Difficult conditions led to an unusually high cut line at 5-over par. There hasn’t been a higher cut line on the PGA Tour in a non-major since the 2015 Valero Texas Open, which cut at plus-6.
In last year’s Honda Classic, players who shot par or better advanced to the weekend.
Plantation native Daniel Berger was alone in the lead for a while at 5-under before three bogeys on the back nine dropped him into a tie for seventh at 1-under.
“The back nine, it was brutal out there. It’s one of the toughest nines that we play in all the PGA Tour,” Berger said.
Woods got in trouble on the second hole when his iron off the second tee went so far left he almost didn’t find it. It turned up under a plant in a hazard, but unplayable, and he had to take a penalty stroke for a drop in the rough. He did well to limit the damage to a bogey by nailing a 10-foot putt.
His round went relatively without a glitch after that until he entered the Bear Trap and came up short on off the tee into the lake on 15, leading to a double-bogey.
After another bogey, he righted himself as one of only four players to birdie 17, which ranked as the toughest hole of the round. The long par-3 requires hitting over a plump lake. With the wind in the players’ faces, 18 have hit into the water in each of the first two rounds.
But something strange happened when Woods stepped to the 17th tee with 5-iron in hand.
“When I got up on the tee, the wind laid down,” he said. “I’m like, well, 5[-iron] is too much but I can’t get 6 there. So that’s one of the reasons why I started that thing pretty far left and hit a pretty big cut in there because I just had too much stick.
“Worked out great. I hit it right below the hole and hit a good putt.”
The putt was a 12-footer, and when it dropped the sold-out crowd in the Bear Trap roared with the knowledge there would be more to come from their idol this weekend.
Woods will start Saturday’s third round at 12:10 p.m. on No. 1.
“It’s amazing to have so many people out here,” said Berger, who was in the group just ahead of Woods. “We had a pretty good group, too, and we had a lot of people out there, but you go back and see Tiger’s group and they have just thousands of guys.
“I love seeing Tiger playing well. He’s one of my greatest heroes in the sport.”
Earlier, List did an admirable job playing the Bear Trap (Nos. 15, 16, 17) in 1-under. He was another of the few to birdie No. 17.
“For whatever reason, just stood up there and had a confident target in mind and was able to hit a nice one today and made a 15-footer,” he said, making it sound simple.
Not so simple for Rory McIlroy, a victim of the unforgiving 17th with a triplebogey six. But he managed to finish inside the cut at 4-over after missing it the past two times he played Honda.
Defending champion Rickie Fowler made par on 17 but bogeyed the other two Bear Trap holes. Those were among six bogeys on the back nine as he shot 76 for the day and had his hopes for a repeat victory vanish at 7-over.
Fowler wasn’t alone in struggling on the greens, which players have pointed out are thin in spots.
Brad Nelson, PGA National’s director of agronomy, told the Golf Channel that the Champion Course’s TifEagle Bermuda greens are 18 years old and have some contamination from other strains of grasses. They aren’t scheduled to be re-grassed until after this event next year.
“Not much grass on the greens,” Fowler said. “It’s unfortunate that the greens have changed this much in a year. … But like I said, everyone’s playing the same greens.”
Tough as it was to control putts, it was understandable that Woods dusted off his signature fist pump, long dormant, after saving par by nailing a 12-footer on No. 11.
It was warranted, considering a week ago his errant putting led to missing the cut at Los Angeles at 6-over.
“This is a difficult golf course right now,” Woods said. “Making pars is a good thing. I’ve done that and I’m right there with a chance. I’m only four back with two difficult days to go.”