The three golfers are at -5, while the Spaniard improves and stands at +4
Eric Cole, leader after the night, made a double ‘bogey’ on his return to the field
Completing negative rounds rewards more than ever in this edition of the PGA Championship in Oak Hill, and three golfers were positioned this Friday in the co-leaderate: the American Scottie Scheffler, the Canadian Corey Conners and the Norwegian Viktor Hovland, all with a -5. A better version of jon rahm (-2, +4 total) allowed him to make the cut and compete over the weekend.
Scheffler started his journey with two ‘birdies’ and penalized with a ‘bogey’ at seven. A wrong putt on the 18th green prevented him from placing a solo leader. “I feel like I had a good day, I didn’t make as many ‘birdies’ as I would have liked, but I had a pretty good number,” Scottie said at the end, aware that he could leave Rochester as number one in the world.
Conners’ work on the ‘green’ catapulted him to the top of the standings, his long ‘putts’ at two, thirteen and fifteen became ‘birdies’. The Canadian dreams of his first ‘major’ and comes from winning the Texas Open in April.
Hovland, who is also seeking his first major title, closed with a birdie in the 18th with a 10-foot putt. “My score has been excellent, I am very satisfied with how I have played, I wanted to get pairs and not get stressed but several ‘birdies’ arrived, so it was better”, commented the Norwegian at the end and before going to the practice field to test with his drive.
The best card of the day was signed by the North American Brooks Koepka with 66 shots, fixing his first round and positioning himself in the group of favorites three shots behind the leader.
Rahm makes the cut
Rahm said Thursday before leaving Oak Hill that he wasn’t ruling anything out if he managed to take several good swings on Friday. The first of them came at number two, with his first ‘birdie’ of the day, in a hole where he bogeyed in the first round. His success improved a lot. finding the ‘fairways’ on the second nine holes, allowing him to better face the attack on the ‘green’, he was also much more reliable with the putt. Thus came three consecutive ‘birdies’ at thirteen, fourteen and fifteen. Precisely that output from the ‘tee’ of fifteen showed that he was “another Rahm”, he left the ball just two meters from the flag and hit the ‘putt’ for his third ‘birdie’ in a row.
And he faced the most decisive moment, that of facing the three holes of 16, 17 and 18 that on Thursday sank him in the classification. This Friday the closing was not so problematic but he could not scratch more blows to the field with a ‘bogey’ and two pairs. Rahm achieved the objective that he had set for Friday, making the cut and making a course under par that would position him closer to the top positions. They were eight strokes less than on Thursday to sign a two under par on the course and a +4 in the standings.
The day began by making up the pending matches from Thursday, and it quickly proved that the break did not suit Eric Cole, leader of the night. He did a double bogey on his return to the field. which dropped him several positions, and already in his second round, many errors and +4 after nine holes, losing any chance of staying among the favourites.
Rain and painful cutting for many
Oak Hill is showing off many of the best golfers on the planet, and today there was also rain with intermittent showers that changed the conditions of the fairways and ‘greens’. The list of top players who won’t be playing this weekend is long with names like Rickie Fowler, Tom Kim, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick and Sungjae Im.
Chilean Mito Pereira improved his opening round on Thursday and closed his round on Friday at one under par thanks to the three ‘birdies’ that made up for the two ‘bogeys’ of the day. He enters the weekend in the top twenty and is the only Latino to do so. The Spanish Pablo Larrazábal also makes the cut taking advantage of his good result on Thursday by finishing with one under par. The +5 in his tour on Friday allows him to be in the final two rounds eleven years later.