BMW Championship, Round 2: Leaderboard, tee times, TV times

SILVIS, Ill. — Michael Kim took a five-shot lead Saturday at the John Deere Classic in a third round delayed twice for a total of roughly 4 hours because of bad weather and concerns over lightning. Kim, who has just one top-10 finish in 84 career PGA TOUR starts, shot a 7-under 64 — closing with four straight birdies — for a three-day total of 22-under 191. Bronson Burgoon (66) is 17 under and Australian Matt Jones (66) is 16 under. Harold Varner III (66) is alone in fourth place at 15 under. Andres Romero of Argentina is 14 under after shooting 64, as is Sam Ryder (67). Tyler Duncan had the day’s best round with a 63. 

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ERIN, Wis. — Jason Day raved about Erin Hills. He joked about buying a house in Wisconsin and giving cheese a try should he win the U.S. Open this weekend. He brushed off Cleveland’s NBA Finals loss to Golden State. Day is feeling good again. On the course and, more important, at home. Day’s mother, Dening, had surgery for lung cancer in March, and the World No. 3 golfer said Tuesday she is doing well. She had more scans recently, and the results are on the way to her doctors. For Day, it’s a little peace of mind after a rough time at the start of the year. “When someone has cancer and you don’t know whether or not they’re going to survive or what the outcome is going to happen — and plus with my mom, who sacrificed a lot for me to be in this position today, it was tough,” said the 29-year-old Day, who was 12 when his father died of stomach cancer. “I mean it was — I don’t wish it upon anyone. It’s something that I could never — I didn’t want to focus on golf. I didn’t want to be on the golf course, because I knew she was at home.” Day withdrew from the Dell Technologies Match Play in March so he could be with his mother. He returned for the Masters, where he tied for 22nd at 2-over par. After missing the cut in the Zurich Classic and tying for 60th at THE PLAYERS Championship, his game started to round into form. Day, who began the year ranked No. 1, got into a playoff with Billy Horschel at AT&T Byron Nelson last month, but lost when he missed a short par putt. He followed with another encouraging performance at the Memorial, tying for 15th at 5 under. “Momentum, it’s key — I think momentum is more key during tournament rounds than actually looking at it,” he said. “Because, yeah, I’m starting to get a lot more confidence over the last two events I’ve played compared to the first nine events that I played. But I look at more during the round knowing that, OK, the middle part of my round’s probably the hardest part of my round, per se.” The U.S. Open at expansive Erin Hills, located about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee, brings Day back to the same state where he claimed the biggest of his 10 PGA TOUR victories two years ago. The Australian broke through for his first major win in the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan, shooting 20 under for a three-shot victory over Jordan Spieth. So naturally, he is quite fond of the home of the cheeseheads. “There’s a lot of good memories coming back,” he said. “The people are fantastic. I love the people up here. Very, very nice. Very genuine people. If I pick one up here, great. That would be a really neat thing to be able to win my first two majors in the state of Wisconsin. Definitely like the golf courses up here. They’re tremendous golf courses. But I’m just trying to do the best job I can.” Day’s best work usually plays quite well at the U.S. Open. He has five top-10 finishes in the last six years, including runner-up at Congressional in 2011 and Merion in 2013. “Everyone is going to run into some sort of trouble out there, everyone is,” he said. “It’s a matter of how you handle yourself in that moment to prepare yourself to greatness. … I’d much rather the course be harder than easier. Tough conditions, windy conditions, rain whatever it is, as long as it’s harder, I feel like I play a lot better in conditions like that.”

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SAN DIEGO — Jason Day and Alex Noren went 77 holes in the Farmers Insurance Open, and it still wasn’t enough to decide a winner. Day holed a 6-foot birdie putt in the dark on the fifth hole of a sudden-death playoff Sunday. Noren followed with a 5-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th hole at Torrey Pines. They had no choice but to return Monday morning to decide the longest playoff in the 67-year history of this event. They each made birdie three times on the par-5 closing hole in the playoff. They made pars on the 16th and 17th holes, with Day having the best chance to end it on the par-3 16th until his 12-foot putt stayed on the right edge. Ryan Palmer began the playoff with them at 10-under 278. He was eliminated with a par on the 18th on the first extra hole. Day closed with a 2-under 70. Palmer hit wedge to 2 feet for birdie for a 72 to get into the playoff. Noren had a 12-foot birdie attempt in regulation to avoid the playoff and narrowly missed. By then, Tiger Woods was long gone. It was the third playoff in three weeks on the PGA TOUR, all of them lasting at least four holes. And while it was entertaining, thousands of fans weren’t around to see it. They left after Woods finished his round. In only his second PGA TOUR event since August 2015, Woods closed with a 72 and tied for 23rd, seven shots out of the lead. Woods said it was a mostly positive week, and it was hard to argue considering he was returning from his fourth back surgery. He at least was closer to the fairway in the final round, but hit only three fairways for the third straight day. “I got a lot out of my rounds,” Woods said. “The short game wasn’t something I was worried about. I knew what I could, what I’ve been doing at home. That wasn’t going to be an issue. It was going to be, `Can I shoot low scores?’ I didn’t, but I grinded out some good rounds.” The final hour of the tournament was a big grind. Day, Noren, Palmer and J.B. Holmes — the latter three in the final group — were tied for the lead with six holes to go. Day twice missed the green with a short iron in his hand, and one of those shots led to bogey. He didn’t make a birdie on the back nine in regulation. Noren appeared to have the steadiest game until he pulled his tee shot into the hazard on the 14th hole and did well to escape with bogey. Noren also made a pair of 7-foot par putts to stay in a share of the lead, and then he missed a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole in regulation. Palmer, trying to win for the first time in eight years, made consecutive bogeys from the bunker on No. 14 and short of the 15th green. He came up big on the 72nd hole with a wedge to 2 feet to get into the playoff. Holmes effectively fell out of the hunt when he missed the 15th green with a wedge and took bogey, and then missed a 4-foot par putt on the 16th hole. He needed an eagle on the final hole, and took some 4 minutes trying to decide on which club to hit. He finally, curiously, decided to lay up and try to make his 3 by holing a sand wedge. He laid up in the rough and didn’t come close to holing the shot. Noren went next and hit his fairway metal over the green, into the tunnel below the TV tower and out the other side. He took his relief, and smartly played away from the flag to keep it from running by the hole and possibly down the slope into the water. But he missed the putt. The fifth playoff hole was nearly too dark to play. Day played a beautiful wedge to 6 feet behind the hole and had to rely on the crowd’s cheering. “I can’t see it,” he said to his caddie. Noren played a 3-wood off the tee and a hybrid onto the green. His eagle putt for the win raced 5 feet by, and the Swede calmly rolled it in, as he had done so often over the final two hours Sunday. “It’s too dark. I could barely see the last putt,” Noren said. “But it’s very enjoyable. This is what I play for. I’m excited.” The Sony Open in Hawaii took six holes before Patton Kizzire won. The CareerBuilder Challenge went four holes before Jon Rahm prevailed. Rahm had a chance to reach No. 1 in the world with a repeat victory at Torrey Pines. He was two shots out of the lead until going into the water and making double bogey on the 18th hole of the third round. On Sunday, the 23-year-old Spaniard fell back early and never recovered. He closed with a 77. Day is trying to end 20 months without a victory, the most recent one in May 2016 at THE PLAYERS Championship when he was No. 1 in the world. “I’ll play all day tomorrow if I need to get the win,” Day said. Noren is a nine-time winner on the European Tour who is No. 19 in the world, trying to make his mark in America.

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