Fans beg for more long balls

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Throughout Friday’s second round of the Players Championship, an entertaining crew of golfers vied for the lead. But most fans were transfixed by a different matter: Whether Bryson DeChambeau would hit an iron or take a mighty lash with his driver on hole after hole.

In a recurring drama, it seemed as if most of the 10,000 spectators at TPC Sawgrass packed behind DeChambeau as he stood on a tee box and deliberated how to attack a par4 or par5. Fans hushed when DeChambeau moved toward his bag.

If he pulled an iron from the bag, the response was a crestfallen bellowing, as if a child’s ice cream cone fell to the floor. “It’s always like a big ‘Awwww’ for an iron,” DeChambeau said.

And if he grabbed the driver — think climatic movie in which a hero vanquishes the villain.

“If it’s the driver, it’s like, ‘Yeah!’” DeChambeau, the PGA Tour’s driving distance leader said with a grin.

DeChambeau, the reigning U.S. Open champion, shot a 3underpar 69 that put him at 6under for the tournament, three strokes behind secondround leader Lee Westwood. Play was suspended Friday evening because of darkness, with a small eight players unable to finish the second round.

Viktor Hovland, ranked 13th in the world, missed the cut after being notified Friday of a firstround violation by his mother — who was watching in Norway.

Her intervention led to a twostroke penalty for Hovland, 23, for inadvertently playing his ball from the wrong place on the 15th green, and he finished two strokes above the cut line.