Marc Leishman shoots 67, leads at Sentry

LAS VEGAS – J.J. Spaun isn’t, and doesn’t want to be, a rookie anymore. The 27-year-old has just begun his second season on the PGA TOUR and as such expects a whole new level of performance. Spaun had a respectable rookie season in 2016-17 finishing 97th in the FedExCup to retain his playing privileges. But he says the three top-10s from last season is not enough, and is aggressively pursuing his first victory. With a 66-65 opening to the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin he has opened a three-shot gap at the top and intends to keep the foot down. “I’ve had a year’s experience now on the TOUR, and this year it’s kind of just taking my game to the next level instead of just kind of being someone that lingers around the cut or top 20s,â€� he said. “It’s time to step up if I want to do something big out here on TOUR and make a name for myself.â€� Spaun said he fell into the trap of some of the negative associations of being a rookie last season. The little things like tee times and scheduling were getting under his skin more than they should have. But he’s thrown away the excuses now. “You need to kind of grow up. You’re not a baby, you’re not a rookie anymore,â€� he stressed. “You feel like – when you’re a rookie – everything is kind of stacked against you. But now it’s time to actually go to work and put yourself in contention and try to get W’s out here.â€� While not officially the 36-hole leader yet as play was suspended late due to darkness Spaun will almost certainly hold the position. The 36-hole leader/co-leader has gone on to win six of the last 10 Shriners Hospitals for Children Opens.  OBSERVATIONS Robert Garrigus felt like he almost couldn’t miss on the greens as he carded eight birdies on Friday. With just a lone double bogey trying to derail his day Garrigus shot an impressive 65 to move to 7-under for the tournament. The stats backed up his thoughts on the greens as he gained 4.811 strokes on the field putting in the second round to be ranked first in the field. “All in all it was one of the great days –  eight birdies in the wind, made a lot of good putts, hit everything where I was looking today with the putter, and that doesn’t happen very often, so I’m going to cherish this one,â€� he said. Darkness once again halted play before the full round could be completed with 28 players left to finish round two on Saturday morning. As such a cut hasn’t been made. The projected cutline stands at +1 with 80 players currently inside the mark. Those on the bubble include defending champion Rod Pampling and major winners Geoff Ogilvy, Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson. The wind was again a factor although it didn’t pick up quite as much as expected in the afternoon at TPC Summerlin. Even so the morning wave played the par-71 course in a 71.99 average while the unfinished afternoon wave was at 72.98 Aaron Baddeley put on a scrambling masterclass in the wind, getting up and down 9/9 times. The four-time PGA TOUR winner put up a second round 66 to give himself a chance at win number five. He sat five off the lead and in a tie for fourth when play was suspended. “The forecast for tomorrow is going to be super windy so it’s going to be a real patience day,â€� he said.â€� Just sort of picking up a bunch of pars and making some birdies. If we can do that on the weekend, we’ll be in a good spot on Sunday.â€� Kelly Kraft is the lone player who can, albeit unlikely, take away the 36-hole lead from J.J. Spaun. The former U.S. Amateur winner sits 4-under on his round through 15 holes and at 8-under overall to be second alone. His round included an ace on the 5th hole. First round leader Whee Kim battled to a 1-over 72 on Friday but remains in contention in a tie for 6th, six shots off the pace. There were two hole-in-ones on Friday. After just three aces in the first five tournaments of the season Kelly Kraft aced the par-3 5th hole with a 6-iron from 174 yards and Brice Garnett performed the feat on the par-3 14th hole with an 8-iron from 164 yards. The last player to make a hole-in-one on the PGA TOUR and go on to win was Dustin Johnson at the 2015 World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship QUOTABLES “I always listened to Freddie (Couples) when he told me, when it’s breezy, swing easy. I do have the best job in the world, for me. This is all I can do. Playing golf for a living is a blessing, and the family loves me, so everything is good.â€� – Robert Garrigus after a 65 moved him to 3rd place. “I got a new putter this week. The Ping Ancer. It’s beautiful. I’ve done some string drills on the putting green, which really sort of helped me get the ball started on the right line. Just sort of through that, I let my body adjust and it’s feeling good.â€� – Aaron Baddeley after sitting fourth in Strokes Gained: Putting through his two rounds. He is five shots off the lead in a tie for 4th place. “Once you kind of see a wheel fall off, you can kind of start seeing all the wheels fall off. I kind of did that a little bit last week, but it was a couple of bad breaks. This week I didn’t want that to happen.â€� – J.J. Spaun after he backed up his lone bogey on Friday with two tap in birdies.  SUPERLATIVES Low Round: J.J. Spaun (1st), Robert Garrigus (3rd) and Chesson Hadley (T16) led the way Friday with rounds of 65. Spaun had 7 birdies and a lone bogey, Garrigus had eight birdies and a double bogey while Hadley notched up 7 birdies and an eagle but had three bogeys. Longest Drive: Bubba Watson gave the crowd what they wanted to see with a 393-yard blast off the 9th tee. Longest Putt: South African Rory Sabbatini drained the longest putt of the second round with a 67-foot bomb for birdie on the 10th hole. Sadly it won’t help him make the weekend after a 77. Toughest Hole: For the second day running the par-4 3rd hole played the toughest, yielding just 10 birdies and a 4.303 stroke average. Easiest Hole: The par-5 9th once again proved the place to make your move with 2 eagles and 64 birdies helping it to a 4.592 stroke average. 

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The man who travels the PGA TOUR each week to help players tweak, tune and customize their Titleist Vokey Wedges is tour rep Aaron Dill. Dill – or “ADâ€�, as he’s often called – has been working with Vokey for more than a decade. In that time, he’s worked on some very interesting sole grinds, giving PGA TOUR players more versatility with their scoring clubs and getting the likes of Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth dialed in to play their best golf. At this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, we spotted a unique 60-degree wedge in the bags of Cameron Davis and Keith Mitchell. We wanted to learn more about the theory behind the design, so we sat down with Dill to talk about what makes the club so special. ** GolfWRX: We spotted an interesting grind on some 60-degree wedges… Dill: Years ago, a couple of players talked about this one grind called the “Vâ€�. It’s a fairly popular grind … on TOUR, but some of the things players talked about, the issues, were not being able to open the face. … They want to be able to open the face and have it sit pretty low to the ground and get under the ball easily, but that was a bit of a challenge. So, we can do either one of two things. We can grind it down, but every time we grind it down, we sacrifice performance everywhere else, and we’re trying to make the smallest possible changes to improve shots and not change the rest of what guys are comfortable with or know how to do with certain wedges. We realized in order to … keep those things the same and allow that wedge to sit closer, we basically flattened that rear section of that wedge on the V and put this little channel in the back. And that basically moves that contact point around a little bit — moves it further back — and allows that wedge to sit closer to the ground for those guys around the green where they need the versatility. GolfWRX: We noticed Davis currently has one in the bag. So he wants to play one shot when it’s square, and another when it’s fanned open a bit? Dill: Exactly. Like most guys out here, he asks, “Build me a wedge that does everything,” which is a tough thing to do, considering all the conditions they play in. … In the case of this wedge, when he’s hitting square-faced shots from the fairway or pitching square-faced and chipping, it offers a lot of protection and bounce, but once he goes greenside and needs to create lift, or have some versatility, … we grind off that one spot and give him that option. ** Wedge grinds are so important. Finding one that offers the greatest amount of versatility for your swing and course conditions is vital in performing your best around the greens. The recreational golfer may not have Dill and the Vokey team at his or her disposal, but golfers of any ability can visit a qualified fitter and educate themselves about their swing characteristics and the optimal wedge setup and grind options. Of course, a few cosmetic touches don’t hurt either. Mitchell’s wedge features stamping that offers a tip of the cap to Dill for his innovative grind, calling the design the “Advanced Breakthrough Proto” and assigning an R&D number.

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SAN ANTONIO — If you want to engage South Korea’s Si Woo Kim in conversation, don’t ask him about golf; ask him about soccer. He’s a rabid Manchester United fan, adopting the team as a teen because of Ji-Sung Park, soccer’s most successful Asian player and current “Man U” team ambassador. About the only thing Kim likes more than rooting for his team is holing putts by the bucket load. Kim had his flatstick dialed in during Thursday’s opening round of the Valero Texas Open, pouring in five birdies in a six-hole stretch on his back nine en route to a 6-under 66, his lowest score in 11 rounds at TPC San Antonio AT&T Oaks Course and the first time he’s broken 70 here. Kim ranked second in Strokes Gained: Putting of the 72 players in the morning wave and credited his 105+ feet of putts made to using the Aim Point system for reading greens. Kim said he first took a green-reading class in Palm Springs five years ago, but hadn’t used the AimPoint system in the past four years. Kim is experiencing a breakthrough season on the greens. He’s ranked No. 118, 179th and 151st in SGP the previous three seasons and has always lost strokes to the competition in the category. But this season his putter has been more friend than foe — he’s +.491, No. 29 on TOUR and top 10 in putting average (4th) overall putting average (3rd) and one-putt percentage (7th). Nevertheless, he said his putter had gone cold in his previous three starts and he toyed with using AimPoint on Wednesday for the first time in years. “If I’m reading good,” he said of the greens, “I can putt it well.” Easier said than done. Using the popular system, Kim determined a numerical value for the slope of the green and held up that many fingers less than an arm’s distance in front of his face to pick the line. If he feels like the putt will break left, he measures his fingers beginning at the right edge of the hole. It worked on Thursday morning. He made four of his eight birdies from more than 10 feet, the longest a 19-footer at No. 3. Kim’s 6-under 66 led J.C. Poston by one stroke among the morning finishers. Related: Insider: Bowditch upbeat in back recovery | Roberto Diaz: ‘Just a normal problem’ | Landry’s fearless attitude Kim, 23, is playing more consistent than in 2017, when he notched his last of two TOUR victories at THE PLAYERS after missing the cut in his previous seven starts. He recorded a T-4 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February and backed it up with a third-place finish at the Genesis Open. He’s made 10 of 13 cuts this season, but his three previous pedestrian results had dented his confidence — a missed cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, T-56 at THE PLAYERS and bounced out of pool play at the World Golf Championships-Dell Tech Match Play. Kim was just plodding along at even par through his first eight holes when he hit his stride. He made birdie on eight of his next 10 holes. “You never know with him,” said Bobby Brown, Kim’s caddie for nearly two years. “When he’s on, he makes the game look so easy.” And which version of Kim showed up on Thursday? “It was one of those days where I just stayed out of his way because he was feeling it,” Brown said.

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