Stenson in front, Spieth lurking

ATLANTA — Two years after Henrik Stenson sailed to victory at the Tour Championship, he has another comfortable lead after 36 holes at East Lake and Jordan Spieth is chasing him.

Back then, Spieth was a 20yearold rookie.

Now he’s the Masters and U.S. Open champion, and he found a spark in a steady drizzle on Friday.

Stenson overcame a few mistakes off the tee and was solid on the back nine for a 2under 68, stretching his lead to three shots over Spieth going into the weekend and moving closer to his first win of the year — and a $10 million bonus for claiming the FedEx Cup.

“I didn’t feel like it was my best day, but I managed to keep it together and 2 under around here is never bad,” Stenson said.

He doesn’t know anything different. This was his sixth straight round under par at East Lake, a course where the Swede has led after every round he has played.

Stenson, who went wiretowire in the Tour Championship in 2013, was at 9under 131.

Spieth has made only one bogey over two rounds, and a pair of par saves on consecutive holes on the front nine felt just as valuable as his four birdies in a round of 66.

Spieth went from the right rough to the left rough on No. 5 and still had 60 yards left and a tree in front of him. He took a risk going through the tree to 6 feet for par, and then rolled in a 20foot par putt for a bunker save on the par3 sixth.

“It was huge,” Spieth said about the par saves. “I thought I may have to retee, and I was just kind of all over the place at that time. And that third shot I hit on 5, I mean, one of 10, maybe. There was no other option, but it wasn’t necessarily smart. And I had to have the wind blowing this branch back and forth, I had to hit it when it blew it this way or else it would have gone up into it.”

Paul Casey made bogey from the bunker on the 18th for a 70 and was four shots behind, while British Open champion Zach Johnson had a 70 and was at 4under 136.