Snedeker leads Wyndham by 2 shots
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Brandt Snedeker couldn’t block out the buzz that surrounded his first-round 11-under 59 at the Wyndham Championship. He refocused just in time to reclaim the lead.
Snedeker followed his historic opening score with a 67 on Friday to take a two-stroke lead into the weekend at the Wyndham Championship.
A day after becoming the 10th player in PGA Tour history to break 60, Snedeker moved to 14-under 126 halfway through the final PGA Tour event before the playoffs.
“You hear people telling you every two seconds, ‘Mr. 59,’ or saying how cool it was to watch it,” Snedeker said. “So, yes, totally on your mind.”
D.A. Points shot a 64 to reach 12 under – one stroke ahead of C.T. Pan, who also had a 64. David Hearn, Peter Malnati, Keith Mitchell, Harris English, Brett Stegmaier and Sergio Garcia were 9 under.
Snedeker, the 2012 FedEx Cup champion, won this tournament in 2007 before it moved across town to the par-70 Sedgefield Country Club. He had the tour’s first 59 of the year during the first round.
But it wasn’t easy to follow a score like that. Of the nine previous players who have broken 60 on the tour, six had to play the next day and only one has shot better than 65 in that round: Justin Thomas, who had a 64 in the second round of last year’s Sony Open.
“You can’t ignore it, you can’t try to forget about it,” Snedeker said. “Hardest thing is trying to get back into a rhythm. … Now I’m better equipped for the next time I shoot 59 and play the next day.”
By the time Snedeker teed off Friday afternoon, that low score had held up for a one-stroke lead. It temporarily slipped away when he had three bogeys on the front nine.
He reclaimed the lead late in his round with some nifty putting. He sank two putts longer than 30 feet, one for eagle on the par-5 15th and another for birdie on the par-4 16th, and wrapped up with the best two-round score at this tournament since Carl Pettersson’s 125 a decade ago.
“When I finally convinced myself to hit a few putts, they started going in,” Snedeker said. “Over 72 holes, you’re going to have stretches where balls don’t go in the hole, you’ve got to be able to kind of overcome, be patient, wait for the long ones to fall, and luckily I made a couple coming down the stretch.”
Points, who has made only one cut since January and failed to reach the weekend in 19 of his 24 tournaments this season, had a strong front nine with three birdies and an eagle on the par-5 fifth hole, where he sank a 40-foot putt. He has finished in the top 20 at this tournament twice since 2014, and after starting far off the bubble at No. 214 on the points list, could play his way into the playoffs this weekend.
“Basically, I know this is possibly my last event of the year, so I haven’t been grinding really hard,” Points seems to be paying off.”
Pan, a 26-year-old from Taiwan, had birdies on three of his final four holes to climb the leaderboard. He sank a 20foot birdie putt on No. 17 and an 8-footer on the 18th to match the best round of his young career.
Among the other highlights: Brian Gay had the day’s best round, a 63 tarnished only by a bogey on his final hole on which he missed a 4-foot par putt. And Mitchell opened with five consecutive birdies to briefly raise the possibility of a second sub-60 score in two days, before slipping back later in his round.
PGA Tour Champions
said. “It
ENDICOTT, N.Y. – Doug Garwood birdied the final three holes for an 8-under 64 and the first-round lead in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.
The 55-year-old Garwood had nine birdies and a bogey, playing his final nine holes – the front nine at En-Joie Golf Club – in 6-under 31.
He won the 2016 SAS Championship for his lone PGA Tour Champions title.
Michael Bradley and Marco Dawson shot 65, Woody Austin and Clark Dennis followed at 66, and Bob Estes and Tom Gillis were at 67.
Kenny Perry, the 3M Championship winner two weeks ago in Minnesota, had a 68.
Bernard Langer and Miguel Angel Jimenez each shot 70. Langer won the 2014 tournament.
Jimenez is coming off a victory at St. Andrews in the British Senior Open.
Defending champion Scott McCarron had a 72.
Kevin Sutherland also had a 72. He shot the only 59 in PGA Tour Champions history in the 2014 event.
John Daly, the winner
Tour’s 1992 B.C. Open opened with a 73.
LPGA Tour
of at the PGA En-Joie,
INDIANAPOLIS – Sung Hyun Park shot a 9-under 63 for a share of the lead with Lizette Salas during the suspended second round of the Indy Women in Tech Championship.
Salas, the first-round leader after a 62, had a 69 to match Park at 13 under at Brickyard Crossing. Danielle Kang and Nasa Hataoka were two shots back. Kang shot 68, and Haraoka 69.
The saturated greens became even softer following overnight and afternoon rain. The storms forced a suspension of nearly four hours, with nearly half the field unable to finish before dark. Angel Yin and Amy Yang were the top players unable to finish, tied at 10 under with each having eight holes to play.
Park has two majors and four overall victories in the last two years, winning the U.S. Women’s Open and CP Women’s Open last year and the Volunteers of America LPGA Texas Classic and KPMG Women’s PGA Championship this season.