Schenk getting results in 10th straight week, leads Valspar Championship
PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — Adam Schenk is playing for the 10th consecutive week on the PGA Tour and finally seeing some good results, making enough putts Friday for a 2-under 69 that gave him a one-shot lead going into the weekend at the Valspar Championship.
Schenk had four birdies, all but one of them from inside 10 feet, and finished with a bogey from the bunker short of the 18th on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook.
That didn’t bother him too much because of the 20-foot putt he made for par on the par-3 eighth, the 10-footer for par he made on the 10th and the long up-and-down for par on the par-5 11th.
“I feel like a lot of times you … maybe shoot 2 under and you’re like, ‘It could have been 6 or 7.’ But it really couldn’t have been a ton better with the amount of putts I made,” he said.
He was at 7-under 135, one shot ahead of Kramer Hickok, who had a 68.
Jordan Spieth is a big part of the weekend, wasting a great round of driving with some suspect short irons. He still posted a 70 and was only two shots behind.
Tommy Fleetwood had a 69 and joined Spieth in the group two shots behind along with Cody Gribble (65) and Davis Riley (68), who lost in a playoff to Sam Burns at Innisbrook last year.
Burns, the two-time defending champion, is trying to become the first player to win the same tournament three straight years since Steve Stricker at the John Deere Classic (2009-11). He had a 73 and was seven shots behind.
Justin Thomas had a 70 and was in the group at 3-under 139.
Schenk had had a few close calls in search of his first victory, such as the
Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas in 2021 and the Barracuda Championship the same year.
He plays a lot, anyway, but there’s a little more emphasis this year because his wife is expecting their first child, a boy, in a little over a month.
“Trying to make as many points as I can to take as much time off as I can and spend time with him and my wife, which will be very special,” Schenk said.
He started his year in Honolulu at the Sony Open and hasn’t had a week off since then, going to California and Arizona, and every stop on the Florida swing. He had made the cut in all but two of them and is No. 72 in the
FedEx Cup.
The missed cut last week at The Players Championship might have helped.
“I was home for 3 1/2 days and didn’t touch a club,” Schenk said. “I would have practiced, but the weather was so bad in Indiana, I really couldn’t. So flew into Valspar Tuesday afternoon and got a little practice in and then played nine holes and then teed up in the pro-am and away we went.”
The cut was at 1-over 143. Among those missing
was Maui’s Alex Chiarella, a Seabury Hall graduate who was making his first start on the PGA Tour after making the field through Monday qualifying.
Chiarella started Friday on the back nine and was 1 over for the round through 10 holes after his eagle on the par-5 first hole. But he faltered coming home, carding two bogeys and a pair of double bogeys for a 7-over 78. He finished the tournament at 16-over 158, last in the 144-player field.