Leaderboard: Three-way tie at 3M Open

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Everything that is old is new again… or is it? Former FedExCup champion Jordan Spieth revived memories of his dominant times with a putting masterclass at Bethpage Black on Friday, but the question becomes whether or not the 11-time PGA TOUR winner can keep it up. RELATED: Berger back in contention on Long Island | Late birdie run saves McIlroy’s day, week Spieth needed just 23 putts to shoot a second round 4-under 66 and move to 5-under at the PGA Championship, the only major missing in his quest for the career Grand Slam. It moved him into second place on the leaderboard after the morning wave, two shots adrift of Brooks Koepka’s first round lead. Spieth has been without a top-10 on the PGA TOUR since he lost the 54-hole lead at the 2018 Open Championship last July to finish T9. He hasn’t won since the 2017 Open Championship. During the lean times, the Texas native has had issues with both his swing and his putting, particularly from short range. However, in two rounds at Bethpage Black, he’s 30 of 31 from inside 10 feet, reviving memories of 2015 where he won five TOUR events, including the Masters and U.S. Open, as well as the FedExCup. “(Putting is) probably 90 percent back to when I was at my best, and the only difference maker is I think just speed control,â€� Spieth said. “Speed control has still been just a little bit iffy… but I feel as good or better 15 feet and in. I feel like I’m where I should be. I’ve put a lot of thought and work into it, and the putting feels good.â€� Spieth made six birdie putts Friday, including one from 39 feet and another from 20 feet. “It was a bonus to have the right reads and the right pace and with some of the putts I made today, I don’t expect to putt as well as I did today, each and every day. It’s just not possible,â€� he added. “But it feels consistent enough to where the good days are like they were today, and off days, I’m still rolling some good putts and still coming away with some confidence.â€� This weekend, he will need every bit of the confidence he’s built. While Spieth’s opening two rounds this season have been fine, his weekend play that has let him down. Coming into the week, Spieth’s round one scoring average was 69.83, and his second-round average was 68.33. But it drops to 71.67 for the third round and 73.11 in final rounds. Spieth claims the numbers speak to luck in the early parts of tournaments rather than poor play on the back end. “This is different. I don’t feel the same. I feel like the way I scored was actually the way that I played, and any time I was in a situation where it maybe looked like I was contending, it didn’t feel like it this year so far,â€� he said. The key, he says, was being able to trust tighter targets with his swing. But with just 15 of 28 fairways hit through two rounds, and just nine of the 18 greens in regulation on Friday, he will need to be even better to have a shot at being just the sixth man to win all four majors in a career. “Ball just needs to find the fairway as often as it was for the guys around me; DJ, Brooks… It’s not going to be as far as theirs, so I’d better be in as many fairways,â€� Spieth said. “I’m 100 percent not hitting it as well as I did a couple years ago, but I’m hitting it a lot better than I did the end of last year, beginning of this year.â€� And will the career Grand Slam enter his thoughts? “It certainly hasn’t. I can’t imagine it will because I haven’t been in contention on a Sunday since The Open last year,â€� the 25-year-old said. “If I’m able to put some good work in tomorrow, then I will be in contention on Sunday. And at that point, it will be just more of trying to win a golf tournament. It won’t matter to me what tournament it is. I’ll be pleased to be in contention, knowing that the work I put in from being pretty far off has really come back nicely on a very difficult golf course.â€�

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RIDGELAND, S.C. — Chesson Hadley is off to his best start on the PGA TOUR since 2016, shooting a 5-under 66 on Friday for a two-stroke lead over Dustin Johnson in the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. RELATED: Leaderboard | Brooks Koepka to miss cut at Palmetto Championship at Congaree Hadley was at 11-under 131 at Congaree Golf Club, his lowest total through 36 holes since the The RSM Classic in 2016. Johnson, who opened his afternoon round five shots behind early starter Hadley, was tied for the lead through 17 holes. But Johnson drove the ball left on No. 18 and into a thick, deeply rooted patch of tall grass. He took an unplayable lie, hit his third shot over the green and made a double-bogey 6 for a 68. Still, at 9-under 133, he had his best 36-hole start since winning the Travelers Championship almost a year ago. “I feel like I’m playing really well,” the South Carolina native said. “So got a lot of confidence in what I’m doing.” American Tain Lee, in just his third career PGA TOUR event, was third at 7 under after a 68. A group of six that included Harris English and South Africa’s Erik van Rooyen were five shots behind at 6 under. Hadley continued his stellar play at Congaree, a fill-in host after the RBC Canadian Open was was called off for a second straight year due to COVID-19. Hadley followed an opening 65 with seven birdies and two bogeys to top the leaderboard. Coming in, he had missed the cut in 10 of his past 12 events. “I definitely didn’t see this coming,” he said. Why would he with his poor stretch of play? After falling short at the Byron Nelson last month for his fifth straight missed cut, the 33-year-old from North Carolina shut things down for a while to clear his head. “Thank goodness I had three weeks off after that just to kind of completely get that behind me and just think about the future,” he said. These two rounds have jump-started Hadley’s waning confidence. “Obviously, we’re a long way form the winner’s circle,” Hadley said. “I’m so thankful to just feel that again, like I belong out here type of thing.” And he’ll play the third round with someone who certainly belongs in Johnson. He’s gone without a top 10 in his past seven starts, a run that included missed cuts at the Masters, where he was defending champion, and the PGA Championship in his home state. Johnson said even he was thrown off course with his recent performances. “For me, it’s all about the misses,” he explained. “If you can keep your misses in play or on the right side of holes, it makes the game a lot easier.” He did that to near perfection, except for that final hole. Johnson had four birdies on a six-hole stretch of the back nine to catch Hadley for the lead. Then the bad drive at the last, which Johnson said came when the club slipped in his glove hand. “That’s a first for me. I obviously was not expecting that,” he said. Hadley, moved in front at 9-under with a 36-foot birdie putt on the 11th hole. He extended his edge on the 15th, landing his approach within 2 feet of the cup for another birdie. Hadley closed with a flourish after sticking his second shot within 8 feet of the cup for another birdie to finish with day’s lowest round. Brooks Koepka, who hadn’t played since his runner-up finish at the PGA, struggled for a second straight round and missed the cut after a 73 left him at 3 over. Wondering if Koepka will be ready for next week’s U.S. Open? There’s this: He missed the cut at the Byron Nelson, then finished second a week later at the PGA Championship. Lee had to Monday qualify into all three of his PGA TOUR starts. Now, he’s four shots off the lead. “Yeah, that’s pretty crazy. That’s wild,” he said. First-round leader Wes Roach followed his opening 64 with a 77 to fall 10 shots behind Hadley.

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Rickie Fowler calls his last five weeks “somewhat of an off-season.â€� It’s fitting, then, that Fowler will begin his 2017-’18 season with somewhat of a working vacation at this week’s OHL Classic at Mayakoba, where he is the highest-ranked player in the field (10) and perhaps the most anticipated first-timer in the event’s 11-year run. “I mean, I’m excited to be down here,â€� said Fowler, who with his girlfriend, Allison Stokke, got to the Riviera Maya on Saturday for some pre-tournament fun in the sun. “I want to play well and I feel like I definitely can play well. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel I could win. But I’m also enjoying the relaxation and getting some time in the gym and we’ll definitely be ready to go and really get the season going in January.â€� On TOUR, the off-season is where you find it, and while Fowler has been busy since he beat Emiliano Grillo 6 and 4 in the Presidents Cup on Oct. 1, he hasn’t been playing golf. Fowler served as Grand Marshal at alma mater Oklahoma State’s homecoming; went to Stokke’s homecoming at Cal-Berkeley; did a wine-tasting tour in the fire-ravaged Napa Valley; shot TV spots for Farmers Insurance in Los Angeles; swung through Scottsdale, Arizona; and squeezed in five rounds of golf. Oh, and he also sent his coach, Butch Harmon, video of his swing last week. (Harmon said it looked good if slightly laid off the top, according to Fowler.) It seemed almost rude to interrupt the relaxed Riviera Maya vibe and ask how Fowler might play this week. “I like the golf course,â€� he said of the 7,000-yard, par-71 El Camaleon Golf Club. “It’s a fun layout. I enjoy playing in windy conditions; I know it can get fairly windy down here.â€� Another thing he noticed in his first trip around the course Wednesday: It’s not very forgiving off the tee. “You have to hit the ball pretty straight to stay out of the native area, whatever you want to call it,â€� Fowler said. “Stay out of it.â€� In the big picture, Fowler, 28, is doing very well, with room for improvement. In 32 major starts he has seven top-five finishes, none of them wins. He led the U.S. Open at Erin Hills after shooting a 7-under 65 in the first round, but faded to a T5 finish. (He has never broken par in the final round in nine U.S. Open appearances.) He picked up his fourth career win at The Honda Classic, but had nine other top-10s. In one sense, Fowler says, last season was “arguably the best I’ve played.â€� That’s one way of looking at it. He also admits he had “maybe not as many wins as I would have liked.â€� Meanwhile, he keeps hanging around to congratulate his friends when they win. Jordan Spieth at the Open Championship. Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship, where Fowler again finished T5. Spieth has said that when Fowler himself wins, a whole world of friends will be waiting for him behind the 18th green. That’s not just karma; it speaks to Fowler’s likability.    If form holds, his major W is coming, perhaps with fate providing a nudge. Fowler won THE PLAYERS Championship in 2015 after a poll in Sports Illustrated tagged him as overrated. And while his critics once said he was too nice, pointing to all those halved matches in the tense, mano-a-mano theater of the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, he went a sporty 3-0-1 at the recent Presidents Cup at Liberty National. He seems likely to figure out the majors, too. “It’s a fine line,â€� Fowler said Wednesday. “You know well enough, seeing guys and where they finish and how they play and understanding how much one putt or one shot can do, whether it’s coming down the stretch or even that one putt early in the week.â€� Patrick Reed, who is also making his first OHL start and also in search of his first major, echoed Fowler’s sentiments. “Nowadays the PGA TOUR is so deep, top to bottom,â€� Reed said. Whatever happens at lush, leafy El Camaleon this week, Fowler will spend some time at home in Jupiter, Fla., before starts at the Hero World Challenge, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, and the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Jan. 4-7. For those scoring at home, that’s the Riviera Maya to the Bahamas to Maui. “Not a bad little swing,â€� Fowler said. You can bet he’ll make the most of it.

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