Johnson nearly aces par 4, cruises in Hawaii

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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NORTH BERWICK, Scotland (AP) — Cameron Tringale has played 331 times on the PGA TOUR without winning. His career-best round of 9-under 61 on Thursday might help him change. Tringale ran off six straight birdies to start the back nine at The Renaissance Club on Thursday and had a three-shot lead in the Genesis Scottish Open, the first event co-sanctioned by the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour. Former U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland saw work with putting coach Phil Kenyon pay off in his round of 64, the only one close to Tringale. “I haven’t had a professional win on my own, and obviously Scotland is where golf started, so this place is special,” Tringale said. And it was relatively benign, at least for Tringale. That wasn’t the case Thursday afternoon, when the average score was more than three shots higher. Flags were crackling in 30 mph gusts that felt even stronger along the shores of the North Sea, conditions best described by the clubs that were used. Some players barely reached the fairway on the par-5 16th, if they did. Patrick Cantlay had 231 yards for his second shot on the 483-yard closing hole. He hit 3-wood, and even that wasn’t enough. Cantlay did well to close with three straight pars, which were at a premium. He had a hard-earned 70. U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick opened with 71, while PGA champion Justin Thomas held on as long as he could. Thomas bogeyed three of his last five holes for a 73. The low score from the afternoon was Kurt Kitayama at 66, and only five other players who faced the afternoon wind managed to break par. Tringale had the lowest score of his PGA TOUR career and matched the course record set three years ago by Bernd Wiesberger when The Renaissance played to a par 71. Jordan Spieth set an early pace by running off five straight birdies, only to drop three shots over his last 10 holes for a 68. He called it a tale of two nines based on course knowledge. “The nine I had never seen before went really well, and the nine I played yesterday went poorly,” Spieth said, who is playing a week before The Open Championship for the first time since 2015, the last time the Open was at St. Andrews. It made sense this year with the PGA TOUR co-sanctioning the tournament for the first time, which led to 14 of the top 15 in the world at The Renaissance, a course that looks like one and is plenty fast without having true links soil. Tringale, who has reached the TOUR Championship only once in his 12 previous years on the PGA TOUR, is having one of his better years. He missed a playoff at Torrey Pines by one shot and was a distant runner-up to Hideki Matsuyama in THE ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP last fall. The conditions along the North Sea could not have been more ideal for him, with only a mild breeze and a full blue sky in the morning. Tringale took advantage with one key club in his bag. “Golf is more fun when the putts are going in, and they were for me today,” he said. He made a pair of birdie putts from the 40-foot range, and only four of his nine birdies were inside 6 feet. Equally important were a few midrange par putts he made at the start. It was a struggle for Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, who made double bogey from the 18th fairway by going from rough to rough, and lost more ground on the front nine for a 73. The Scottish charge was led by Ewen Ferguson (67) and Russell Knox (68), who heeded some strong advice from his wife, a former tennis pro. Knox has been struggling with his putter when he was persuaded to try a long putter. “My wife said, ‘You’ve been playing professional golf for 15 years and you’re horrible at putting. Try something different,’” Knox said. “The best putt of my life was a 3-footer for par on the first hole because if that didn’t go in, we were in for a long day.”

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