The First Look: Fortinet Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – You could slice and dice Webb Simpson’s 63 a number of different ways. He tied the course record (63), tied the tournament record with six straight birdies, tied the 36-hole record, and takes a record five-shot lead over Patrick Cantlay (68), Charl Schwartzel (66) and Danny Lee (66) into the weekend at THE PLAYERS Championship. But now what? Is the tournament over? Or is it just beginning? “I think, more than ever, it’s easier to be a chaser on today’s PGA TOUR in general,â€� said Adam Scott (68, 7-under), who is eight shots back. “The line between birdie and bogey is becoming finer, and when the leader has that pressure and makes an error, bogey is so much easier to make these days.â€� “Sure, he has to feel pretty good about where he is,â€� Scott continued, “but I had a seven-shot lead at Bay Hill a couple of years ago, and then it was down to three. And then you lose. There’s as much golf to be played as we’ve already played, so certainly he can be caught.â€� Only three players have taken a lead of three or more strokes into the weekend, and all have won: Lanny Wadkins (1979, at Sawgrass Country Club, three-shot lead); Greg Norman (1994, three shots); and Jason Day (2016, four shots). And to be sure, Simpson’s round was freaky good. Playing partner Tyrell Hatton asked if he could touch Simpson’s putter, and asked his caddie, Paul Tesori, “You remember Chevy Chase from Caddyshack?â€� Jhonattan Vegas, the third member of the group, admitted he became a fan, rooting for Simpson to break the course record. (Simpson hit into the water and double-bogeyed 17, then failed to birdie 18.) Jordan Spieth monitored the round from afar and marveled at how anyone could be 11-under through 16 holes. What’s more, Simpson is not an untested rookie but a four-time PGA TOUR winner and two-time Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup player. He’s 32, and came into this week enjoying a career revival (36th in the FedExCup) after switching to the claw putting grip exactly a year ago. But still. It’s TPC Sawgrass. It’s golf. And Simpson is one for 10 at converting 36-hole leads/co-leads into victories on TOUR. “If I can shoot 9-under today, a guy can go out and shoot 7-, 8-, 9-under tomorrow, and shrink it pretty quickly,â€� he said. “I think it’s a beautiful golf course in the sense that I could go shoot a few under tomorrow, because there’s birdie holes out there, but if you’re off a little bit, you make bogeys or double bogeys as easy as you can make birdies. I don’t think any lead is safe.â€� Few expected the leader to be 15-under, which tied Day in 2016 for low first 36 holes. But there it was, right there in lights on the course’s electronic scoreboards. “The most entertaining golf in our group was watching Webb’s score,â€� said Justin Rose (72, 4-under), who called it “a miracle roundâ€� and added that he’ll need to shoot one himself on the weekend if he’s going to have any kind of chance. Simpson wasn’t betting against it. “There’s no defensiveness in my game tomorrow,â€� he said. “I want to go out and hit a good drive on 1 and just keep the same game plan. The only time you really get defensive, I think, is the last two or three holes of a golf tournament.â€� OBSERVATIONS SCHWARTZEL HIRES SWING COACH. Since he won the 2011 Masters, Charl Schwartzel has won the 2016 Valspar Championship, plus six other tournaments in Europe and Asia. He just hadn’t done much in the last few years, and so Schwartzel, who had always relied on his father to coach him, hired an outside coach in Justin Parsons last November. So far, so good at TPC Sawgrass, as Schwartzel fired a second-round 66 to get to 10-under. “My last two years, maybe even two and a half years, have been pretty frustrating,â€� Schwartzel said. “But that’s attributed to bad positions in the golf swing, and that’s made the game very difficult for me. I employed a coach pretty much for the first time in my life. My dad used to always look after me, and it’s just — I just didn’t see him enough so I employed a coach in November, and it’s really worked out well so far.â€� The results weren’t immediate, but Schwartzel saw encouraging signs with a third-place finish at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans (with partner Louis Oosthuizen) and a T9 at the Wells Fargo Championship. He made six birdies and no bogeys Friday. CANTLAY MAKES FRIDAY A FIESTA. Patrick Cantlay’s shirt was festooned with tacos, sombreros, cacti, and whistles, and his clubs made plenty of noise, too. The UCLA product shot a second-round 68 to get to 10-under through two rounds, and would have gone bogey-free except for a bad break at the par-5 ninth hole. “I drove it left, which wasn’t a good shot,â€� said Cantlay, who is aiming for his second win of the year (Shriners Hospitals for Children Open). “But my shot coming out of the left trees, there was a stick right in front of my ball, and I couldn’t tell if I could [remove] it clean or not. “I made a really nice swing,â€� Cantlay added, “but I got all stick in front of the ball and it went in the water. I actually made — I actually felt like every swing I made except the tee shot was really good on that hole, and I got up-and-down for a 6.â€� FINAU ALL WET AT 17. Although there were plenty of birdies to be had, the course soaked an unlucky few, as always, none more so than Tony Finau (72, 2-under total). The long-hitting golfer from Utah was cruising along at 6-under when he came to the par-3 17th hole, where he hit two balls in the water and walked off with a quadruple-bogey 7. “I pulled the first one a little, and it landed right on the crest on that left side,â€� said Finau. “And it spun all the way into the water. I was on ground for eight seconds, you know? It was almost worse that way. It gives you so much hope. You’re like, It’s going to stop, it’s going to stop. “It even stopped on the board for a second,â€� Finau added. “So, that was kind of brutal. I went to the drop area and I pulled the next one, and it flew pin-high and one-hopped in the water. The pin was in the back, only four off the back. It can happen pretty fast like that.â€� Finau, who said the ankle he injured at the Masters is back to “probably 80 percent,â€� also made a double-bogey at the par-5 ninth hole after he couldn’t find his tee shot left of the fairway. He hit a provisional from the tee before being told that a kid had found the original ball, which had rolled into a hole next to the cart path. Finau’s topsy-turvy round also featured an eagle at the 16th hole NOTABLES JORDAN SPIETH – Bounced back with a 4-under 68 to get to 1-under for the tournament and make the cut. Spieth hadn’t made the cut here since a T4 in his first PLAYERS start in 2014, but now gets to play the weekend. “I’ll be going out early, so I don’t think I’ll get the teeth of the course,â€� he said. “It’s a good opportunity to maybe shoot a 6-, 7-under round, play fearlessly, attack par-5s … and then have a chance Sunday to back-door a top-10 or even a top-5 with a special weekend.â€� JUSTIN THOMAS – Shot a 2-under 70 to tie playing partner Spieth at 1-under through 36. RORY MCILROY – Double-bogeyed the 17th hole and shot 74 to finish 1-over, missing the cut for the first time since 2012. PATRICK REED – Masters champion made the cut with room to spare with a bogey-free, 4-under 68. Reed came to the PLAYERS on the heels of six consecutive top-10 finishes. TIGER WOODS – Faulted his lack of precision with the short irons, and didn’t putt particularly well, either. Still, he at least made the cut with a two-birdie, one-bogey 71 (1-under total), which was more than the other two guys in his group could say for themselves. PHIL MICKELSON – He made six birdies, a vast improvement over day one. Unfortunately, he also made five bogeys and a double-bogey for a 73 to finish 8-over and way outside the cut line. RICKIE FOWLER – He’d just birdied three of his last four holes when it all went wrong. First Fowler hit his tee shot into a tree and double-bogeyed the sixth hole, and then he pulled his tee shot into the water and double-bogeyed the seventh. Two pars to finish and the author of one of the most exciting PLAYERS victories ever in 2015 had shot 71 (+1 total) to miss the cut. QUOTABLES I was between a lot of things, but we’ll leave that discussion now. I think the end result was 8.Just trying to stabilize, because when you’re trying to hold it just with your hands, I mean, obviously they shake a little bit.I’ve got a man cold, and with that comes exaggerative symptoms. SUPERLATIVES Low round: Hmm, let’s see … er, Webb Simpson’s course-record tying 63. His putts-made distance of 142 feet, 8 inches didn’t include hole-outs of 18 feet and 27-1/2 feet from off the green. Longest drive: Patrick Rodgers’ 364-yard drive on the 14th hole. Despite the long drive, he still made bogey en route to a 4-over 76. Longest putt: Emiliano Grillo’s birdie putt from 50 feet, 5 inches on the island-green 17th. Grillo shot a 1-under 71 to finish at 4 under through 36 holes. Hardest hole: The par-4 18th, playing at 453 yards on Friday. It played to a stroke average of 4.266, with just 12 birdies made against 40 bogeys and five others. Easiest hole: The par-5 16th, playing at 515 yards on Friday. It played to a stroke average of 4.490, with nine eagles and 71 birdies against just 14 bogeys and one other. CALL OF THE DAY For play-by-play coverage of Round 3 of THE PLAYERS Championship, listen from 1 p.m. – 7 p.m. ET on PGATOUR.com. SHOT OF THE DAY

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SAN DIEGO - Rain, hail and shine. And add wind too. Torrey Pines showcased it all in Friday's second round of the Farmers Insurance Open. When Lanto Griffin buried a 15-foot eagle putt to take the outright lead late in his round, the sun was trying to break through some scattered cloud around the cliffs of the iconic coastal venue. Twenty minutes later he was trying to pick pieces of hail off the par-3 8th green that were interfering with his line and as such could be forgiven for a three-putt that saw him drop a shot. Schizophrenic weather conditions certainly played their part as Viktor Hovland - a Norwegian who is used to the cold - forged his way to the 36-hole lead in "sunny" Southern California. Initial forecasts had set a bleak tone for Friday's second round, but heavy overnight rain actually let up at sunrise. Play began as scheduled with bright sunshine and picturesque views of the Pacific Ocean with hang gliders soaring overhead. But while there was some sun, there was no warmth, as temperatures settled in the low 50s. And as play continued the winds started to lift and squalls found their way onto the course, particularly the coastal adjacent holes. "The last couple weeks I’ve been in Oklahoma and it’s been really cold, so I’ve had probably three, four layers on practicing and I think that’s helped me for this week," the young Hovland said with his now trademark wide grin after he capped off a brilliant 7-under 65 on the tougher South Course. "It got really cold and obviously raining and hail, so being Norwegian, I think that also helps." Coupled with his 2-under 70 from Thursday on the North Course, Hovland sits out front at 9-under par. But there are a bevy of big names ready for a weekend chase after they also survived the wacky weather. Griffin is one of those at 8-under (66-70). "It was every type of weather, we had it all today. Started out like kind of windy and chilly and then it got warm and then it started hailing and then stopped hailing and then started hailing," Griffin said. "It was one of those days you kind of just have to embrace it." Australian Adam Scott - at home amongst the eucalyptus trees but certainly not in the chilly temps – ripped his 9-iron hard into the breeze from 136 yards on the par-4 2nd hole. It only went 125 yards and spun back off the green such was the power of the mini storm he encountered during that portion of his 3-under 69 on the South that also had him at 8-under. "The wind wasn’t violent, but the temperature going down just makes that wind so heavy and the ball goes so short. It’s really hard to adjust perfectly to that on the fly," Scott said as he looks to go one better than his only other Farmers Insurance Open appearance - a runner up in 2019. He found himself humming the Australian classic song - Four Seasons in One Day - by Crowded House at times. "You’ve already played nine holes, then the temperature drops and all of a sudden trying to gauge that a 9‑iron’s only going to go 125 is a hard call to make. You're just doing your best and trying not to make a big error, but it’s hard to all of a sudden see that the ball’s going 30 yards shorter than normal." When Jordan Spieth tried to line up his putt on the 17th hole caddie Michael Greller huddled over him with an umbrella to deflect the hail, and seemingly get as close to another body as possible for some warmth. After making eagle on the par-5 6th early in his round Spieth was in good shape to buck the trend of poor results he's suffered of late. But as things got tougher, he started to leak shots. When he returned after a near one hour suspension of play, he faced needing to birdie the par-5 18th to make the weekend. But par was all he could muster. His Texan buddy Ryan Palmer had no such trouble. For the fourth year running Palmer set himself up through 36 holes. He led at this stage in 2018 and 2020, was T3 in 2019 and T2 this week. Now he needs to arrest the trend that has seen him fade on weekends at the venue. "It was beautiful this morning, I couldn’t believe it when we got out here," Palmer said. "The first five, six holes we had to go out and try to get something going … then I realized you could feel the winds coming up, you could see the rain out in the distance, and I knew it was going to get tougher and tougher, so I just kind of told myself, let’s just stay steady and shoot a couple under par and we’ll be in a good position." Palmer's mate Jon Rahm - with whom he combined to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2019 - joined him at 8-under after also getting the benefit of playing the easier North Course Friday. He wasn't a fan of getting hit by sideways stinging rain at times. "Those fairways are narrow enough as it is. When you start adding the side wind, it’s just not fun. I can’t really stress how hard it can get," Rahm said after a 67. "North is easier. South today is brutal, I mean absolutely brutal. Every shot counts out there. Even being on the fairway some shots are not easy and with this wind and rain coming in and out, for those who played the North today, we should feel really fortunate." Fortune, they say, favors the brave. Robby Shelton was brave. He played without extra layers. A jacket-free 8-under 64 on the North featured nine birdies and puts the two-time Korn Ferry Tour winning 25-year-old just two shots back. "I just don’t swing well in a jacket. I tried to stay a little freer today even though I was a little cold, but I was fine." Lucky for him the sun is set to return for a weekend shootout.

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Bourbon Street doesn’t hurt, but 10 of the top 14 players in the world are lured to this week’s Zurich Classic by a fun format that breaks from the 72-hole stroke-play grind.

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