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Viktor Hovland made a rare mid-tournament equipment change during his win at last week’s Hero World Challenge. He started the week at Albany Golf Club with a Ping i210 3-iron in his bag. Seeking a higher trajectory with his long approach shots after the wind died down on the weekend, however, he swapped it out for a 7-wood that he’d only started using a few weeks earlier. Ping’s TOUR manager, Kenton Oates, had been strongly suggesting for some time that Hovland add a 7-wood to his arsenal. Hovland, however, felt a utility club or long iron worked best in the slot between his 3-wood and 4-iron. When he first arrived on the PGA TOUR, he played a 21-degree Callaway X-Forged UT iron. More recently, the 24-year-old Norwegian has had a Titleist T200 3-iron and a Ping i210 3-iron in the slot. He changed his mind, however, after testing the 7-wood of fellow TOUR player Lanto Griffin on the range at the Shriners Children’s Open in October. According to Oates, Hovland “changes from tournament to tournament” and was targeting a 240-yard carry with the club in that slot in his bag. Hovland switches each week between the 3-iron and the 7-wood depending on the characteristics of that week’s venue. When he’s looking for higher, softer-landing approach shots in the 240 to 260-yard range, or playing a long, fast course, Hovland will opt for the 7-wood. When facing a shorter or tighter golf course where he might use the club off the tee, he opts for the 3-iron. He also uses the 3-iron in windy conditions to keep the ball closer to the ground. Indeed, Hovland had the latter in his bag at the start of the Hero. After the wind died down during the final rounds of the Hero, Hovland switched out the 3-iron for a Ping G425 Max 7-wood with a Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 X shaft. Hovland’s switch is part of the 7-wood’s increasing popularity on TOUR. Oates said many of the 7-woods he builds are “more like 6-woods.” They are usually set in Ping’s “small minus” or “minus” loft sleeve setting, which reduces the loft of the club by 1 or 1.5 degrees. So, instead of playing at 21.5 degrees, the club plays at 20 or 20.5. Additionally, Ping will often build the clubs with a shaft that is shorter than standard length.

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Former PGA TOUR winner Arjun Atwal was among the four players to qualify Sunday for the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He’ll try to repeat his feat at the 2010 Wyndham Championship, where he Monday qualified for the event and then hoisted the trophy Sunday. He was the first qualifier in 24 years to win a PGA TOUR event. Atwal, 44, shot 4-under 66 on Monday at Windyke Country Club in Memphis, Tennessee, to share medalist honors with Jordan Russell. Chip Deason and Garrett Osborn grabbed the final two spots in a 6-for-2 playoff after firing 67. Former PGA TOUR winners Heath Slocum and Brendon Todd also took part in that playoff, as did Ben Wood and 56-year-old Jay Delsing. The FedEx St. Jude Classic’s qualifier was conducted Sunday because of Monday’s U.S. Open sectional qualifying. Atwal collected his last official victory at the 2014 Dubai Open on the Asian Tour. He has won on the PGA TOUR, Web.com Tour, European Tour and Asian Tour. Russell is a former Texas A&M golfer who was a semifinalist at the 2011 U.S. Amateur at Erin Hills, site of next week’s U.S. Open. Russell has competed on both the Web.com Tour and PGA TOUR Latinoamerica, but has not played an event offering Official World Golf Ranking points since 2015. This will be his PGA TOUR debut. Osborn, 32, has one top-10 in seven career PGA TOUR starts. He finished T9 at the 2014 Sanderson Farms Championship after Monday qualifying for that event. The Alabama-Birmingham alum also has played in 88 Web.com Tour events, posting two third-place finishes. He has played just 10 events on that circuit since the end of 2010, though. Deason, 42, has played in five career PGA TOUR events. His best finish is T54 at the 2008 Ginn sur Mer Classic. Deason, an Alabama alum, also has played in 20 Web.com Tour events, making three cuts. 2016-17 Monday qualifiers Qualifiers: 63 Made cut: 18 (28.6%) Top-25s: 4 (6.3%) Top-10s: 0 Best finish: T11, Keith Mitchell at Valspar Championship AT&T Byron Nelson qualifiers T66. Alex Moon, 74-66-72-73 MC. Sean Kelly, 74-71 MC. Y.E. Yang, 74-72 MC. Benjamin Polland, 75-75

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JACKSON, Miss. — Byeong Hun An was making so many birdies in the Sanderson Farms Championship he worried the storms would cost him momentum. Even waking up at 4 a.m. to play 25 holes Friday didn’t slow him. An finished off a 6-under 66 in the morning and then birdied four straight holes to start the second round, carrying the former U.S. Amateur champion to another 66 and a two-shot lead when the second round was halted by darkness. “I was on a bit of fire yesterday. I finished with three birdies,” An said. “Was a bit disappointing that they blew the horn because I was especially in good shape and I had two par 5s coming in. Two 66s, that’s not bad. It was solid apart from one shot I hit in the water.” Instead of setting up a fifth straight birdie in the second round, An pulled his second into a pond on the par-5 fifth hole and made bogey. He still shot 31 on the front. He finished two rounds with 13 birdies. And he was at 12-under 132. J.T. Poston, who finished his first round with a 64 to share the 18-hole lead with Tom Hoge, had a 70 and was among those at 134, along with Hoge (70), George McNeill (67) and Scottie Scheffler, a rookie who led the Korn Ferry Tour Finals that just ended earlier this month. Scheffler also has 13 birdies through 36 holes. Among those still on the course at the Country Club of Jackson when play was suspended by darkness, Cameron Percy of Australia was at 9 under and Seamus Power of Ireland was at 8 under. They each had seven holes remaining in the second round, which was to resume Saturday morning. If the weather cooperates, it should be no trouble getting back on schedule, especially with a new PGA TOUR policy that reduces the cut to top 65 and ties. Among those assured of missing the cut was 17-year-old Akshay Bhatia, who made his TOUR debut with a 70 in the morning and a 74 in the afternoon. “I know I can compete out here,” Bhatia said. “I shot under par in my first go-round as a pro. Just got to do what I need to do and say it with a smile.” If the lead holds for An, it will be the second time on the PGA TOUR he has led after 36 holes. The other occasion was two months ago in the Wyndham Championship, where he finished third. Poston won that event. An stayed hot, even though he didn’t take advantage of the par 5s like he thought he would. He has played them in even par for the two rounds, including his bogey from the water early in the second round. He’s doing enough right on the other holes. An started out his second round with an 8-foot birdie putt, holed a birdie putt from 18 feet on the next hole, got up-and-down from a bunker on the par-5 third — his lone birdie on the par 5s so far — and made an 8-foot birdie on No. 4. “If you hit it well and in position I think you’ll have plenty of birdie chance because the greens are … they’re not soft, but they kind of stop dead, so they don’t spin as much or they’re not as firm as I thought it would be,” An said. “I think you can fire at the flag and it stops within couple feet. Definitely see a lot of birdies out there. “I definitely need a lot of birdies on the weekend as well because people can make birdies out here.” Carlos Ortiz of Mexico and Harris English each shot 71 and were at 8-under 136. Brandt Snedeker was at 6 under for the tournament with two holes left in his round. Joaquin Niemann, the 20-year-old from Chile who won last week at The Greenbrier, ran into a rough patch and was hovering around the cut line until a late birdie. He was at 4 under — two shots above the projected cut line — with two holes remaining. Defending champion Cameron Champ had a 72 and was eight shots behind.

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