Day catches fire on back, up 2 at Quail Hollow

SAN ANTONIO — The co-leaders after three rounds at the Valero Texas Open spoke on a darkening Saturday night about their hopes to play hard and well for one more day. Neither mentioned the personal stakes. One wants to win for the first time in 83 starts on the PGA TOUR. The other wants to win for the first time period. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Wallace plays with new cross-handed swing The last group in the final round of the oldest professional tournament in Texas, the one celebrating its 99th year on the TOUR, will feature Jordan Spieth and Matt Wallace at 12 under par, with Charley Hoffman two strokes behind them. Spieth, a Texan who has yet to triumph in his home state, looks to summon the brilliance of his first five seasons, when he won 11 times, including three majors. Wallace, an Englishman with 36 TOUR starts since 2017, has never finished better than third. Hoffman has no victories since the 2016. That was right here at TPC San Antonio, in the sixth-oldest professional golf tournament in the world. The three of them separated themselves on a cool, gloomy afternoon after rain postponed play for two and a half hours. Spieth and Wallace shot 5-under 67. Hoffman shot 65. They played the back nine in a combined 14 strokes under par, which bodes well for those who believe in momentum carried over. Spieth has had his opportunities in a resurgent 2021 season. He held a share of the 54-hole lead at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, his first since 2018. He finished tied for fourth. He did the same thing a week later, at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but this time he had the 36-hole, too. He tied for third there. "I was pretty anxious to start that next day" in Phoenix, said Spieth, whose struggles since 2017 have been documented well and discussed widely, including after his even-par 72 in the fourth round in the desert. "I felt really calm at Pebble," he said, "and then been in contention a few times since." In his five starts in stroke-play tournaments since a missed cut in January at the Farmers Insurance Open, Spieth has had a reasonable chance to win four (he tied for 48th at THE PLAYERS Championship). In every one of them, he failed to break 70 in the final round. That pattern must end. "The goal this week was to get myself into contention and have a chance to win," Spieth said. "The next goal is to try and get myself into position to be in control on the back nine." Wallace knows and accepts that spectators at the Valero Texas Open, even in modest numbers in a pandemic, unanimously agitate for a Texan to prevail — or maybe even Hoffman, a Californian who, since 2006, has four finishes here inside the Top Five and six inside the Top 10. "Hopefully I won over some fans there today," Wallace said. Wallace, 30, has four international victories, all of them on the European Tour, but none in the U.S. "There's times in rounds where you know you need to make things happen and know you need to hole a putt at the right time," he said. "So I'll prepare myself for that and I'll think of the good stuff," he added. "That I've holed putts this week. I've pulled shots off." The winner of the Valero Texas Open gets a pair of Lucchese boots — crafted in Texas since 1883. Those are stakes of a different shape. The player who holes the most putts, pulls off the shots and produces enough of the good stuff gets to try them on for size.

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HOUSTON – The second round of the Houston Open was completed Saturday morning, with Peter Malnati holding a two-shot lead, amateur Cole Hammer making the cut and Tyler Duncan suffering a calamity on the final hole in the final group. A total of 59 players finished their second round after play was suspended for darkness Friday at the Golf Club of Houston, thanks to a two-hour weather delay earlier in the day. Malnati had already completed his round as one of the earlier finishers, reaching 10 under after his bogey-free 7-under 65. He’ll take a two-shot lead over Sepp Straka, Talor Gooch and Scott Harrington into the third round, which will be played off two tees in threesomes in hopes of getting back on schedule. Malnati, Straka and Gooch are in the final threesome teeing off at 2 p.m. ET. It’s only the second time in Malnati’s PGA TOUR career that he has held the lead after any of the first three rounds; he also led the 2018 Wells Fargo Championship after the second round. Malnati’s lone win on TOUR came four years ago at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Hammer, the University of Texas sophomore from Houston playing this week on a sponsor exemption, was among the 20 players making the cut on the number at even par. Hammer finished up a 5-over 77 on Saturday after opening with a 67. Hammer’s only previous PGA TOUR start came as a 15-year-old at the 2015 U.S. Open when he missed the cut. Duncan was safely inside the cut line at 2 under after rolling in a 52-1/2 foot birdie putt at the 17th before misfortune struck at the par-4 18th, which yielded just one birdie in the second round and is playing as the toughest hole on the course this week. Duncan’s tee shot found the intermediate rough near the right-side fairway bunkers. He followed that with a shot landing in the water that guards the left side of the hole. He then three-putted, missing a bogey attempt from inside 5 feet, for a double bogey that left him at 1 over and outside the cutline. Another player missing the cut was Henrik Stenson, playing for the first time this week with a new 3-wood. Rich Beem, playing his first non-PGA Championship tournament since 2014, made the cut at 4 under and is tied for 17th. Current FedExCup leader Sebastian Munoz was among those making the cut at even par.

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