Leaderboard: Round 2, Valero Texas Open

For the second consecutive year, Chase Seiffert qualified for the Travelers Championship one week after his former Florida State teammate won the U.S. Open. Seiffert and Koepka will be reunited once again at TPC River Highlands after Seiffert shot 63 on Monday at Ellington Ridge Country Club in Ellington, Connecticut. Seiffert contended at last year’s Travelers Championship before fading on the weekend. It was one of three events that he qualified for in 2016-17. James Driscoll, Andrew Svoboda and Rick Lamb shot 66 to also qualify. Two of this season’s most successful qualifiers narrowly missed earning another TOUR start. Scott Strohmeyer, whose fourth-place finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship is the best this season by a Monday qualifier, shot 67. T.J. Vogel fired 68 to miss the mark by two shots. He has qualified for six events this season. Here’s a closer look at the players who earned spots in the Travelers Championship on Monday. CHASE SEIFFERT (63) Age: 26 Hometown: Panama City Beach, Florida Alma mater: Florida State PGA TOUR starts: 4 Cuts made: 3 Best TOUR finish: T43, 2017 Travelers Championship Notes: Seiffert made the cut in all three tournaments he qualified for last season. He was in fourth place, just two shots off the lead, halfway through last year’s Travelers Championship before shooting 3 over on the weekend. He has played just one PGA TOUR-sanctioned event in 2018, finishing T48 in the Web.com Tour’s Rex Hospital Open. Seiffert shot 64 to qualify for that event. JAMES DRISCOLL (66) Age: 40 Hometown: Jupiter, Florida Alma mater: Virginia PGA TOUR starts: 240 Cuts made: 118 Best TOUR finish: 2nd, 2009 Valero Texas Open and 2005 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Notes: Driscoll, a Masachusetts native, is making his PGA TOUR return close to home. It will be his first TOUR start since the 2016 OHL Classic at Mayakoba. He won on the Web.com Tour in 2016 but has played just one event on that circuit in 2018. Both his runners-up on the PGA TOUR were playoff losses. He lost a playoff to Zach Johnson in San Antonio and Tim Petrovic in New Orleans. Driscoll also was runner-up in the 2000 U.S. Amateur, losing to Jeff Quinney on the 39th hole of the 36-hole final. ANDREW SVOBODA (66) Age: 38 Hometown: Roslyn Harbor, New York Alma mater: St. John’s PGA TOUR starts: 76 Cuts made: 31 Best TOUR finish: T2, 2014 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Notes: The three-time Web.com Tour winner is playing his first PGA TOUR event since 2015. He has missed the cut in four of five cuts on the Web.com Tour this season. He is 171st on the Web.com Tour money list. RICK LAMB (66) Age: 27 Hometown: St. Simons Island, Georgia Alma mater: Tennessee PGA TOUR starts: 28 Cuts made: 9 Best TOUR finish: T3, 2017 John Deere Classic Notes: Lamb has conditional status after finishing 150th in the FedExCup in his first TOUR season. He has made just one cut in nine starts this season, though. Lamb won on the Web.com Tour in 2016 and finished just two shots behind Bryson DeChambeau at last year’s John Deere. Lamb is 120th on this season’s Web.com Tour money list. FEDEX ST. JUDE CLASSIC QUALIFIERS T63. A.J. McInerney, 70-69-69-75 MC. T.J. Vogel, 70-74 MC. Omar Uresti, 70-75 MC. Ben Crancer, 75-72 THIS SEASON’S QUALIFIERS Qualifiers: 67 Made cut: 22 (32.8%) Top-10s: 3 (Scott Strohmeyer, T4 at Sanderson Farms; Trey Mullinax,T8 at Valspar; Julian Suri, T8 at Houston) Top-25s: 5 Most times qualified: T.J. Vogel (6)

Click here to read the full article…

ATLANTA — Patrick Cantlay met his goal in the first round of the TOUR Championship on Thursday, and it had nothing to do with the score on his card or the size of his lead. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Patrick Reed says he felt his life was in danger with double pneumonia As the top seed in the FedExCup, he started with a two-shot lead over Tony Finau before even hitting a shot. He finished the warm, breezy day at East Lake at 3-under 67 with a two-shot lead over Jon Rahm. This was all about playing another tournament round. “I think being in the spot that I’m in, it would be easy to get ahead of yourself and easy to maybe stray from your game plan because you feel like you’re ahead,” Cantlay said. “And that’s just not helpful, so I’m not going to do that.” Only four players had a better score, so it was a good day regardless of the format that allows player to start at various points under par depending on their FedExCup position. Rahm began by chipping in for birdie, kept the round from getting away from him with a few key saves — one for bogey, one for par — at the turn, and ran off four birdies over his last seven holes for a 65. Cantlay, who started at 10-under par, moved to 13 under. Five shots behind was Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English, and only one of them managed to pick up a little ground on Cantlay while delivering one of the more exciting moments. That would be English, who was headed in the wrong direction when he stepped to the tee at the par-3 15th over water, the second-toughest hole at East Lake, smashed a 5-iron from 224 yards and watched it drop for a hole-in-one, the first one since the TOUR Championship first came to East Lake in 1998. He followed with two more birdies for a 66, one better than Cantlay on the day, a little closer than when English started. DeChambeau birdied his last three holes to salvage a 69. He started three shots behind and now is five shots behind. Finau, meanwhile, had a 72 and went from two shots behind to seven back. This is the third year of the format, and Cantlay doesn’t know how the lower half feels. He was the No. 2 seed in 2019 when it started. That first time didn’t go well. He had one of his worst weeks of the year, which cost him nearly $2 million with how far he fell. Justin Thomas was the Nos. 1 and 3 seeds the previous two times. Now he’s at No. 6, meaning he started six shots out of the lead. That was a new experience. He noticed he already was in 10th place by the time he teed off, based on some early scoring, and found that to be a bit jarring. Worse yet was being 1 over on the front nine. Starting out six shots behind in the first place, his hopes could have ended early. But he shot 31 on the back nine, five birdies and one impressive par save on the 14th, and pieced together a 67. He’s still six back. It could have been worse. “When you start behind like that, unfortunately, you just don’t have the luxury of shooting a 1 over or 2 over the first round,” Thomas said. “And I salvaged a good round out there and feel like I can easily go out there and shoot 6 or 7 under one of these next three days. And hopefully I do.” Rahm started four back and, like Cantlay, chose not to pay attention to anything but the next shot, even as the good start looked as though it could get away from him. He took bogey from the left rough on No. 7, had to get up-and-down from behind the eighth green for bogey and saved par from a bunker on the par-3 ninth. That was as important as some of his birdies. Now he’s two behind Cantlay with 54 holes left, and now matter how odd it might seem at the start, now it feels like a regular tournament. “It’s very easy to get caught up on how far back you start. I don’t think I really once thought about it out there. I was just trying to post a score,” Rahm said. “My job is to hit the best shot I can each time and that’s all can I control.”

Click here to read the full article…

Click here to read the full article…