Lingmerth leads by 2 with 65s
POTOMAC, Md. — David Lingmerth knows he won’t have to shoot 20-under par for the week to win at tricky TPC Potomac. After two near-flawless rounds in the Quicken Loans National, he was halfway there.
The 29-year-old Swede, the winner of a Web.com Tour event on the punishing Washington-area layout in 2012, shot his second straight 5-under 65 on Friday to extend his lead to two shots over Geoff Ogilvy.
Lingmerth used his reliable fade off the tee to avoid trouble and set up birdie opportunities. He has gone 34 straight holes without a bogey. His final fade of the day was possibly his best, a 6-iron from 177 yards that he held up against the wind on the par-4 18th. It finished 7 feet from the hole, leading to birdie.
Several players said before the tournament that 10 under might be good enough to win. Lingmerth’s winning score five years ago was 8 under.
“It’s definitely as tough as advertised,” he said. “It happens quite a bit actually that (the) two-round score ends up being pretty close to the final winning score. That’s not necessarily always the case. So I’m hoping to keep plugging away, making more birdies over the weekend.”
Lingmerth hit 12 of 14 fairways on Thursday and 10 of 14 on Friday, and he hit all but five greens in regulation each
day. His short game was sharp, too. After his approach came up short on the uphill par-3 12th, he hit a bump-and-run into a steep slope that trickled onto the green and settled inside 2 feet.
The former University of Arkansas player won the 2015 Memorial for his lone PGA Tour title.
Ogilvy played in the first group off the 10th tee and also shot 65.
Daniel Summerhays shot 68 and was alone in third, four shots back. Sung Kang, who shot 69 amid tougher conditions in the afternoon, was five shots back along with Arjun Atwal (67).
Ogilvy took advantage of calm morning conditions and flawless greens to birdie three of his first four holes. He added birdies from 6 feet on No. 1 and inside 2 feet on Nos. 2 and 4. He finished with an 8-footer for par.
“That 7:15 (tee time) is pretty early. You’ve got to get out of bed pretty early, but once you get out here it’s always nice. It was the perfect morning to play golf,” Ogilvy said. “It’s always nice to be under before you’re over on a course this hard.”
The 2006 U.S. Open champion, who was once ranked No. 3 in the world, now sits at 232 and had to take a one-time exemption for being in the top 50 in career earnings to maintain his PGA Tour playing privileges this season. He missed the U.S. Open for the first time in more than a decade and isn’t in the British Open, either, although that could change this week. The top four players in the Quicken Loans National field who aren’t already exempt will qualify for the British Open, provided that they finish inside the top 12.
“I have to get the job done here,” Ogilvy said. “Back in the day when I was top 50 in the world, you have long-term exemptions, I would have considered going to play France this week.”
No one came close to challenging the leaders in the afternoon as the wind picked up, firming up the already-dry fairways and baking out the greens at TPC Potomac, which is hosting the event for the first time. The cut was 4 over.
U.S. Senior Open
PEABODY, Mass. — Kenny Perry shot a 6-under 64 on Friday for a share of the U.S. Senior Open lead with Kirk Triplett at a record 11 under through two rounds at Salem Country Club.
Triplett followed his opening 62 with a 67 in the morning, and then Perry came from three strokes back to tie him. Perry missed a 25-footer for birdie on No. 18 just moments before the horn sounded to clear the course because of an approaching storm.
The 36-hole total of 129 was one stroke better than the record set by Michael Allen in 2013 in Omaha, Neb. Perry won that year.
Doug Garwood (67) was two strokes back at 9 under, and Bernhard Langer (65) and Scott Verplank (66) were 8 under. Langer won the first two majors on the PGA Tour Champions this year.
Eight threesomes failed to finish the second round before play was suspended.
One day after matching the record for any round in any senior tour major, Triplett needed a couple of saves to remain atop the leaderboard and break the 36-hole mark his college teammate at Nevada set in 2013.
“I love to beat him, but he beats me probably more than I beat him,” Triplett said about Allen. “I’m sure he looks at me and goes, how did that guy beat me today?”
Doug Garwood followed his opening 64 with a 67 on Friday and was two strokes back, as scores rose from Day 1 but still remained lower than when the Senior Open was played here in 2001 and Bruce Fleischer won at even par.
Garwood, who won the SAS Championship last year and has one top-10 finish in 2017, has been fighting back injuries — a herniated disk, arthritis, bone spurs and misalignment of the spine — that required an epidural last week. He has tried stretching, but on Tuesday he had to interrupt his practice round to lie down.