Burns, Hoge share 36-hole lead at frigid TPC Sawgrass

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Sam Burns bundled up to fight near-freezing temperatures at the start and closed out his second round with a 75-foot eagle putt and an 18-foot par to share the lead with Tom Hoge after 36 holes in the rain-delayed Players Championship. Hoge has been atop the leaderboard for four days at the TPC Sawgrass. He played golf on only two of those days. The Pebble Beach winner opened with a 66 on Thursday and because of rain delays, didn’t start his second round until Sunday morning. The temperature was 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 degrees Celsius) in the morning with a light wind. Hoge closed with a pair of tough pars for a 71. Burns made his eagle on the par-5 16th and his big par on the final hole for a 69. They were at 7-under 137. Erik van Rooyen, the South African who played his college golf at Minnesota, holed a wedge for eagle on the par-5 ninth hole to close out his 67 and leave him one shot behind with Harold Varner III, who had a 69. This week is all about the weather. Four inches of rain that saturated the Stadium Course led to five hours of delays on Thursday, four hours of play on Friday and a late start — noon on Saturday — to get the course ready. Sunday at TPC Sawgrass typically decides the winner. This time it was all about who got to keep playing into Monday evening. Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler can count themselves among the fortunate. They finished the second round Saturday at 2-over 146 and appeared certain to miss the cut with the final two groups finishing up the round. And then Scott Piercy, who appeared safe at 2-under par, hit two shots into the water on the island-green 17th and made a quadruple-bogey 7 that knocked him to 2 over. Piercy bogeyed the 18th and wound up missing the cut. Others didn’t get off so easy. The strongest field of the year won’t include three of the top 10 players in the world — Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. One thing made clear at the halfway point was who lucked out on the tee times. The top 15 players going into the third round all had the early-late side of the tee times, meaning they faced mostly calm and rain-soaked conditions on Thursday and avoided the ferocious wind that wreaked havoc on the Stadium Course on Saturday. Burns was watching most of Saturday on TV. “I just felt bad for the guys that had to play,” he said. “You never wish that upon your opponents. It’s unfortunate. Over your career, you have good waves and bad waves. … There’s only so much you can control out there, and weather is not one of them.” Burns did his part after a sloppy start to his back nine, including what he described as one of the worst shots he ever hit, a 7-iron that went 126 yards into a bunker on the 10th hole. The bonus was his eagle putt on the 16th after a shot that avoided water by some 5 yards and left him a putt from the front of the green to a back pin. Kevin Kisner was among those on the wrong side of the draw, and his only wish was that players on Sunday morning suffered in the cold weather. That wish was granted. Hoge found himself layering up with three sweaters and even that wasn’t enough. But he played good golf, too, playing bogey-free for the final 17 holes. Even with the realization that it was Sunday afternoon, the tournament was more like a Friday afternoon. There’s still a long way to go, and 32 players were within five shots of the lead. That included Jon Rahm, who played Sunday morning and shot 72, and Dustin Johnson, who had a 73 on Saturday that felt much better. The average score was 74.46, about a full stroke lower than it was at the end of Saturday to reflect how much better the conditions were, even in the cold. Rahm hit one shot on Saturday when the round was stopped by darkness. It turned out to be a decent break because he returned for the next 71 shots without as much wind. “I was able to play a rather mediocre round of golf and post a decent score and I’m still in the hunt for this tournament,” he said. “So I consider myself lucky.”

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