Follow live: Kuchar strikes out in front at The Open

SAN DIEGO - Rain, hail and shine. And add wind too. Torrey Pines showcased it all in Friday's second round of the Farmers Insurance Open. When Lanto Griffin buried a 15-foot eagle putt to take the outright lead late in his round, the sun was trying to break through some scattered cloud around the cliffs of the iconic coastal venue. Twenty minutes later he was trying to pick pieces of hail off the par-3 8th green that were interfering with his line and as such could be forgiven for a three-putt that saw him drop a shot. Schizophrenic weather conditions certainly played their part as Viktor Hovland - a Norwegian who is used to the cold - forged his way to the 36-hole lead in "sunny" Southern California. Initial forecasts had set a bleak tone for Friday's second round, but heavy overnight rain actually let up at sunrise. Play began as scheduled with bright sunshine and picturesque views of the Pacific Ocean with hang gliders soaring overhead. But while there was some sun, there was no warmth, as temperatures settled in the low 50s. And as play continued the winds started to lift and squalls found their way onto the course, particularly the coastal adjacent holes. "The last couple weeks I’ve been in Oklahoma and it’s been really cold, so I’ve had probably three, four layers on practicing and I think that’s helped me for this week," the young Hovland said with his now trademark wide grin after he capped off a brilliant 7-under 65 on the tougher South Course. "It got really cold and obviously raining and hail, so being Norwegian, I think that also helps." Coupled with his 2-under 70 from Thursday on the North Course, Hovland sits out front at 9-under par. But there are a bevy of big names ready for a weekend chase after they also survived the wacky weather. Griffin is one of those at 8-under (66-70). "It was every type of weather, we had it all today. Started out like kind of windy and chilly and then it got warm and then it started hailing and then stopped hailing and then started hailing," Griffin said. "It was one of those days you kind of just have to embrace it." Australian Adam Scott - at home amongst the eucalyptus trees but certainly not in the chilly temps – ripped his 9-iron hard into the breeze from 136 yards on the par-4 2nd hole. It only went 125 yards and spun back off the green such was the power of the mini storm he encountered during that portion of his 3-under 69 on the South that also had him at 8-under. "The wind wasn’t violent, but the temperature going down just makes that wind so heavy and the ball goes so short. It’s really hard to adjust perfectly to that on the fly," Scott said as he looks to go one better than his only other Farmers Insurance Open appearance - a runner up in 2019. He found himself humming the Australian classic song - Four Seasons in One Day - by Crowded House at times. "You’ve already played nine holes, then the temperature drops and all of a sudden trying to gauge that a 9‑iron’s only going to go 125 is a hard call to make. You're just doing your best and trying not to make a big error, but it’s hard to all of a sudden see that the ball’s going 30 yards shorter than normal." When Jordan Spieth tried to line up his putt on the 17th hole caddie Michael Greller huddled over him with an umbrella to deflect the hail, and seemingly get as close to another body as possible for some warmth. After making eagle on the par-5 6th early in his round Spieth was in good shape to buck the trend of poor results he's suffered of late. But as things got tougher, he started to leak shots. When he returned after a near one hour suspension of play, he faced needing to birdie the par-5 18th to make the weekend. But par was all he could muster. His Texan buddy Ryan Palmer had no such trouble. For the fourth year running Palmer set himself up through 36 holes. He led at this stage in 2018 and 2020, was T3 in 2019 and T2 this week. Now he needs to arrest the trend that has seen him fade on weekends at the venue. "It was beautiful this morning, I couldn’t believe it when we got out here," Palmer said. "The first five, six holes we had to go out and try to get something going … then I realized you could feel the winds coming up, you could see the rain out in the distance, and I knew it was going to get tougher and tougher, so I just kind of told myself, let’s just stay steady and shoot a couple under par and we’ll be in a good position." Palmer's mate Jon Rahm - with whom he combined to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2019 - joined him at 8-under after also getting the benefit of playing the easier North Course Friday. He wasn't a fan of getting hit by sideways stinging rain at times. "Those fairways are narrow enough as it is. When you start adding the side wind, it’s just not fun. I can’t really stress how hard it can get," Rahm said after a 67. "North is easier. South today is brutal, I mean absolutely brutal. Every shot counts out there. Even being on the fairway some shots are not easy and with this wind and rain coming in and out, for those who played the North today, we should feel really fortunate." Fortune, they say, favors the brave. Robby Shelton was brave. He played without extra layers. A jacket-free 8-under 64 on the North featured nine birdies and puts the two-time Korn Ferry Tour winning 25-year-old just two shots back. "I just don’t swing well in a jacket. I tried to stay a little freer today even though I was a little cold, but I was fine." Lucky for him the sun is set to return for a weekend shootout.

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Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady took on Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning in Capital One’s “The Match: Champions for Charity� at Florida’s Medalist Golf Club on Sunday. Tiger and Phil, together again, only now partnering quarterbacks and playing to raise money in the fight against COVID-19, and with everyone wearing microphones to great effect. THE MATCH: Leaderboard | Team Tiger/Peyton wins | Top 10 observations Woods and Manning held on to win 1 up despite a valiant back-nine comeback by Mickelson and Brady, the latter having filled up the hole from both on and off the green. Most importantly, they raised $20 million, and The Match was pure fun to watch. Mickelson was especially chirpy early, joking that he’d brought out his “Tiger Slayer� Odyssey putter, and, fueled by coffee, was preparing to activate his calves for the long-drive contest on the third hole. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen,� Woods said, “this is what I have to listen to every time we play.� Not that he didn’t get some digs in of his own, later stating that he could mark his ball with the gold medal from the U.S. Open. All told, it was another fascinating installment of Tiger and Phil. After 20-plus years of these guys, the rivalry somehow still has legs. Why is that? The contrast in styles (righty vs. Lefty, strategist vs. seat-of-the-pants, new kid vs. more established pro) has helped; there was never any confusing one for the other. Rory McIlroy said much the same thing about the overseeded grass after winning THE PLAYERS Championship last year; he could differentiate the fairway from the rough as he stood on the tee. Contrast is everything. But it must be the right kind of contrast. Without trying to, Tiger and Phil fit the classic rivalry mold perfectly, one side a seemingly immovable pillar of excellence (Woods, who once made 142 straight cuts) and the other a less disciplined genius (Mickelson, who hit a ball through a gap in the pines at the 2010 Masters). They were Borg and McEnroe; the old-school Boston Celtics and the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers; and Boris Spassky and bad boy Bobby Fischer. Such contrasts allow us to access the full range of emotions, for while one side inspires awe and commands respect (82 PGA TOUR victories, 15 majors, two PLAYERS titles), the other alternately drives us mad (what do you need with two drivers?) and deliriously happy (2004 Masters, 2007 PLAYERS, 2013 Open Championship). And no, you can’t manufacture a rivalry – except in a script, where you totally can. Soviet-built machine Ivan Drago and big-hearted Rocky Balboa in “Rocky IV� come to mind, although I’m not proud of that. For a rivalry to really work, however, both sides have to occasionally win. Competitive balance is the special sauce, and this is where Tiger and Phil almost didn’t end up clicking. Way back in 2001 at a Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, Mickelson told me something that at the time seemed debatable. “When I compete with Tiger,� he said as we ate chips and salsa, “I can see myself – the line of a putt, the shot I want to hit – more clearly.� I nodded, but Woods seemed to be in a class by himself. He had just set or tied 27 PGA TOUR records as he won nine times in 2000. Still, Mickelson had won the TOUR Championship that year, firing a 66 to overtake Woods (69) and Vijay Singh, so I wrote it in my notebook. And it turned out he was right. Studies have shown how sports rivals lift each other up; college and pro teams get quantifiably better in the year after their chief rival wins the championship. Long-distance runners are five seconds per kilometer faster if a top rival is in the race. So it went with Tiger and Phil. “Although we often see them as enemies,� author Adam Grant wrote in The New York Times last year, “our rivals can be our greatest allies. You can see this in the extreme in sports.� Tiger and Phil battled at Doral, Bay Hill, Firestone, Augusta National. We suspected that they made each other better, but now we know just how much better. As Justin Ray of The 15th Club wrote for PGATOUR.COM, for the last 15 years Mickelson has gained an average of 1.12 strokes on the field per round, but when playing alongside Woods that number has jumped to 2.00 strokes per round. So, yeah, maybe Phil really did see the shot he wanted to hit more clearly. (Playing with Mickelson also helped Woods, although less so.) Who won the rivalry? Woods will end his career with far more victories, but as Ray points out, on 31 occasions when both were within five of the lead going into the final round, Woods won 10 times, Mickelson nine, while Woods shot a cumulative 51 under par, Mickelson 52 under. That they’ve grown into the rivalry perhaps shouldn’t surprise us. For as Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, also wrote in The Times, “If you build a supportive relationship with that rival, it can elevate your performance even further.� Tiger and Phil took it to another level when they committed to the Ryder Cup Task Force after the U.S. Team’s lopsided defeat at Gleneagles in 2014, and are now closer than ever. Mickelson is even planning to move to South Florida; you can just imagine Phil knocking on Tiger’s door to ask if he can come out and hit some bombs, and Tiger rolling his eyes and agreeing. So, yes, they’ve made each other better on the course, but also off it. They’ve made Brady and Manning better, and at the Medalist on Sunday, all four of them did their part to make even the ongoing pandemic better. Even as we anticipate the twilight of their competitive careers, the rivalry between Tiger and Phil continues to elevate us all.

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Bryson DeChambeau thinks he knows what caused dizzy spells at the Masters. His brain was working too hard. DeChambeau was the betting favorite in November with his enormous size and power to go along with his six-shot victory in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot a few months earlier. He fell behind early and complained of feeling dizzy and something being wrong with his stomach. He says he saw doctors for any issues with his inner ear, had tests for eye pressure and ear pressure and even had an ultrasound on his heart. “The one thing I will tell you is that I’ve done a lot of brain training … and the frontal lobe of my brain was working really, really hard,” DeChambeau said Friday. “And that’s kind of what gave me some weird symptoms.” DeChambeau finished a disappointing T34 at Augusta National, his only finish outside the top-10 in four starts this season. He was T7 at last week's Sentry Tournament of Champions, where he led the field in driving distance (303.6 yards) and Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (+6.52). He played his final eight holes at Kapalua in 6 under par, including an eagle at the final hole, where he hit his 244-yard approach to 6 feet. DeChambeau is fourth in the FedExCup standings. He did not elaborate on what made the frontal lobe work so hard or how it affected him. DeChambeau, ever the scientist, uses a program called “Neuropeak Pro” to use proper breathing control his heart rate and calm his brain. “As I started to to relax my brain a little bit and just get into a more comfortable situation and got on a really good sleep schedule routine, a lot of those symptoms went away,” he said. “And they come back every once in a while, but as I do a lot of breathing, it goes away and that’s really what I’m focused on trying to do.” As he chases speed — he says he reached a ball speed of 211 mph on the range at Kapalua last week, but nowhere near that on the golf course — the immediate target outside the ropes is his stomach. “I’m really working on gut health right now,” DeChambeau said. The most obvious difference is the 40 pounds of muscle and mass he has added as he tries to build a body that can tolerate swinging the club as hard and as fast as he can. He said he now is trying to lean out what he described as a “dirty weight gain bulk.” He also said he was taking digestive supplements at the Masters as he worked on the “gut stuff,” and that contributed to him not feeling his best. Then there’s the additional layer of stress from being at Augusta National under a brighter spotlight than ever. “It all took a toll,” he said. “I don’t think it was exactly that specific thing. But it was a combination of a few things that escalated my brain, overworking and just giving out.” Meanwhile, the chase for speed and distance continues as he keeps tabs on his body. DeChambeau’s quest is to swing so fast that the golf ball comes off his driver at 210 mph. He topped that on the practice range, but found his ball speed at 193 or 194 mph during the tournament. “That just shows you how the brain reins you in going, `No, I need to hit it straight because I’m a professional golfer and I still need to keep it in play every hole.’ So you kind of lose that ability to just free yourself up and let it go,” he said. “I can get it over 200, no problem. It’s just about how can I get that on a golf course now.”

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