Steeling the spotlight
Matches against Lefty help player attack Muirfield Village
DUBLIN, Ohio — Two matches at home against Phil Mickelson made Brendan Steele feel inadequate. Two rounds at the Memorial gave him a share of the lead.
Steele put in a little more work and it paid off over two days in soft conditions at Muirfield Village. He had a 5-under-par 67 on Friday and was tied for the lead with past Memorial champion Matt Kuchar (66) going into a wide-open weekend.
Steele, whose only PGA Tour victory was in his rookie season five years ago, took the last two weeks off to attend a wedding, go fishing with his father and go to San Diego to play a few games with Mickelson at The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe.
“He just drummed around for a couple days, so I knew that I needed to really work hard on my game when I got here,” Steele said.
The mathematical definition of getting drummed turned out to be 2 and 1 on the first day, 5 and 4 on the second day.
“But the second day, he shot 10 under, I just felt like my game was very inferior to his,” Steele said.
He made a quick fix with swing coach Rick Smith, had time for more tweaks and he took that straight to the course for solid play the past two days. While there was nothing at stake, he has Mickelson by five shots at the moment. Mickelson gets credit for a tip. “I think it’s hard in an off week to find out where your game is at unless you play against some good competition,” Mickelson said. “It identified the area that he needed to work on. He called up Rick, he came out and worked on it, and now here’s the result. That was kind of the benefit.”
Steele and Kuchar were at 12-under 132, the same score that led a year ago.
The scoring was so good, however, that the cut was at 2-under 142, the lowest since Jack Nicklaus started this tournament in 1976.
Also, Ian Poulter will be out of golf for the next four months with a foot injury, a big setback for the fiery Englishman in a Ryder Cup year.
Poulter has been dealing with an arthritic join in his right foot for more than two years, and it has reached the point where it is painful to walk and practice. He missed the last two cuts on the PGA Tour in Texas and has fallen to No. 85 in the world.
Local pair in contention in Web.com tourney
Former Dalton High School golfer Blake Adams and Baylor School and UTC alumnus Stephan Jaeger were tied for fourth at 11 under with their second rounds in progress when play was suspended for darkness at the Web.com Tour event in the Dominican Republic.
Eric Axley from McMinn County is at 6-under 138 after a second-round 67, and former UTC standout Steven Fox is at 139.
Inman leads Champions event
DES MOINES, Iowa — John Inman shot a 7-under 65 at the Wakonda Club to take a two-stroke lead in the PGA Tour Champions’ Principal Charity Classic.
Tom Lehman was tied for second with Todd Hamilton, Gary Hallberg, Mike Goodes and John Riegger.
Fitzpatrick up by three shots in Stockholm
STOCKHOLM — Matthew Fitzpatrick made the turn in 32 strokes and eventually opened a three-shot lead after two rounds of the Nordea Masters on Friday.
Fitzpatrick’s bogey-free 7-under 65 put him at 11 under overall at Bro Hof Slott club and in sight of a second European Tour win, to go with his British Masters victory last November.
Nordqvist in front by two in LPGA event
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Anna Nordqvist opened her ShopRite LPGA Classic title defense with a 7-under 64 for a share of the lead with Ai Miyazato and Paula Reto. Stacy Lewis, the tournament winner in 2012 and 2014, had a 66.