Who’s safe, who’s not for Presidents Cup at Medinah

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Sam Burns kept piling up birdies Friday, turning a solid start into a great round of 8-under 63 for a share of the lead in the Valspar Championship. RELATED: Leaderboard | Max Homa ties ShotLink record to contend at Valspar Keegan Bradley got there with one shot. Bradley ended his round by holing out for eagle from 100 yards in the ninth fairway, over a deep bunker to the elevated green. The shot left him guessing until he saw the fans jump out of their seats. That gave him a 66 and the best uphill walk at Innisbrook. “I turned a good day into a great day,” Bradley said. “Man, it was a fun day. And what a way to finish. It was a blast.” Bradley and Burns were at 12-under 130, and their play in the steamy afternoon on the Copperhead course gave them a little separation starting out the weekend. Lucas Glover (65), Charley Hoffman (66) and Max Homa (68) were four shots back. Only 10 players were within five shots of the lead through 36 holes. Bradley, whose longest par putt was 4 feet in his bogey-free opening round, opened with two quick birdies before coming up short of the green on the 12th hole and making his first bogey. Birdies were hard to come by the rest of the way, but he made up for it with one swing. With the steep hill, he played the 100-yard shot as if it were 119, and then he added 6 yards to account for a little wind. It was a gap wedge. “A perfect shot,” he said. “You can’t see the green from down there, so you have to wait for the crowd’s reaction,” he said. “And when everyone puts their arms up, normally that means it goes in. So another bonus of having fans out here. It makes it a lot more exciting for everybody.” Maybe not for Phil Mickelson. The five-time major champion said he is struggling to keep his focus, or to regain his focus after distractions in the gallery, such as a phone ringing. He bogeyed two of his last three holes for a 69 to miss the cut by one shot. “My physical ability to refocus, to back away and then refocus and so forth, I’m physically not able to do it right now,” the 50-year-old Mickelson said. Burns had a few key par saves early in his round, and he took off after making the turn. He holed an 18-foot birdie putt on No. 10, reached the par-5 11th in two for a birdie and then holed a bunker shot on the 12th. “Birdied the first three on the back and then just kind of we’re off,” he said. Burns had a one-shot lead after 54 holes in the Vivint Houston Open in November and closed with a 72 to tie for seventh. He had a two-shot lead at Riviera going into the last round and shot 69 to finish one shot out of a playoff won by Homa. “For me it’s just sticking to what I’ve been doing, having a good game plan going into the day,” he said. “I know over the weekend there will be some challenges, and I’m excited for the opportunity.” Homa still has plenty of confidence from his win two months ago at Riviera, and it shows. He doesn’t feel as though any part of his game is out of order, and his putting has been superb. Homa has made five putts of 25 feet or longer. And his short track record at Innisbrook — three appearances, three missed cuts, all six rounds over par — is a distant memory that comes with a simple explanation. “I think I’m just better at golf now,” Homa said. Among those at 7-under 135 were Sungjae Im, one of the best iron players on TOUR at a course renowned for rewarding good ball-strikers, and past Innisbrook winner Charl Schwartzel. Due to the great finishes of Burns and Bradley, the top two players have their work cut out for them. Dustin Johnson (68) was nine shots back, while Justin Thomas (71) was 10 behind. Glover had a good stretch of his own, hitting 6-iron from 209 yards to 4 feet on No. 3, the hardest hole of the second round on the Copperhead course. He followed that with a chip 7-iron to a front pin just over the bunker on the par-3 fourth, settling 4 feet away for another birdie. Glover is trying to build confidence. Unlike Homa, he doesn’t have a recent victory to give him a spark. The last win for the former U.S. Open champion was 10 years ago at Quail Hollow. Still, there is a rhythm to how he plays and how he walks that is starting to look familiar. Glover doesn’t waste any time stepping over the ball and making contact — usually in the middle of the clubface — nor does he get overly excited on a Friday. But it’s a step in the right direction. His iron play has been average. His short game has bailed him out. All he wants now is to get his game a little more tidy. “Two more rounds to go. A lot can happen,” Glover said. “But I’m happy the way I’m playing, happy with the way I’m putting and just want to have a shot.”

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Fred Funk returned to TPC Sawgrass’ Stadium Course this weekend, site of his signature PGA TOUR win at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2005. There was plenty to reminisce about. After a string of weather delays on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, this year’s PLAYERS will finish on Monday for the first time since Funk’s triumph, where he completed 32 holes on a marathon final day, becoming the oldest PLAYERS champion at age 48. This year’s field will face a similar challenge, with the third round’s final grouping of Sam Burns, Tom Hoge and Harold Varner III completing nine holes as play was halted Sunday due to darkness. The plethora of contenders – 17 players within four shots of leader Anirban Lahiri – will aim to channel their inner Funk, who weathered gusts up to 42 mph with 2-under play across those 32 holes. Monday’s conditions at TPC Sawgrass aren’t slated to be quite as severe, but winds of 14-16 mph will pose a demanding test on the water-infused Pete Dye layout. As he returned to the scene of his iconic triumph – punctuated with an up-and-down for par from a greenside bunker at the 72nd hole and a hat spike – Funk offered some words of advice to the field. “You’ve just got to stay super focused,” said Funk of the best way to handle a marathon Monday finish. “The biggest thing in these kind of conditions is hitting it solid. If you’re not hitting the ball solid, you have no control, none at all. “It’s not only a big-time tournament, and it’s got the prestige of being the fifth major, but it’s also on a really, really hard golf course. It’s a very visually intimidating golf course in normal conditions, and then when you’ve got conditions like this, you’ve just got to stay super focused.” Monday finishes at THE PLAYERS haven’t just produced the oldest winner in tournament history, but also some of its most memorable finishes. Hal Sutton’s famous “Be the right club today” shot clinched his win on a Monday in 2000, and Tiger Woods won his first PLAYERS on a Monday a year later after a duel with Vijay Singh that saw Singh make a triple bogey and an eagle in the final five holes. It was Woods at the height of his powers, as he won the Masters a few weeks later to complete the Tiger Slam. He held the five largest titles in golf concurrently. Funk, who was men’s golf coach at the University of Maryland before earning his TOUR card, spent the majority of his TOUR career as a resident of Ponte Vedra Beach. The home-field advantage came in handy during the myriad weather delays throughout the week. That Saturday, competition was delayed after Funk completed three holes. He went home for lunch and a nap. “My caddie comes running in; he says, ‘Wake up, wake up. We’re in position on the 10th tee in 20 minutes,’” remembered Funk. “I go, ‘Wow, if I weren’t so close, I would’ve missed my tee time.’ “I just threw on my pants and I went to the 10th tee, and then we play three or four more holes, and back off the course again. So it was that kind of week.” Funk’s defining stretch came midway through the fourth round, as he rattled off four birdies in a seven-hole stretch, punctuated with an aggressive line into the par-3 13th and subsequent 6-foot birdie. “The pin was really tucked left, right by the water, right by the bulkhead,” remembered Funk. “There were like four paces onto the green, and I was left of the hole, closer to the water than it was to the pin. It could’ve gone in the water and it didn’t, and I made birdie there.” After three-putt bogeys on 14 and 15, Funk faced another critical moment with his second shot into the par-5 16th. One of the most historically accurate drivers of the golf ball, Funk split the fairway, leaving 234 yards into the hole. The wind whipped. Funk pulled 3-iron and played boldly. “A little bit of a hook lie, side of the mound, and the wind is howling, and I aimed 10 yards out into water on purpose,” recalled Funk. “I started it dead on line, 10 yards out into the water, and I hit it so solid that the wind didn’t hit it at first. So I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s going in the water,’ and finally the wind slammed it and I got it up on the green, 20 feet for eagle. “A shot you’re normally not going to try in that big of a tournament, but the conditions were so difficult, and the guys I saw later when I saw some replays, they aimed at the middle or left side of the green and played it safe, they got it blown over into the left side of these mounds, and you’re dead over there. “Taking on the pin and taking on shots, I did that all day. I got away with it on some, that probably shouldn’t have.” Funk three-putted for bogey on 17, a result he didn’t mind as much, considering the alternatives – “I’m watching everybody hit it in the water.” With par on 18, he posted 9-under total, then watched as Luke Donald and Scott Verplank failed to make closing birdie to match. Who will follow in Funk’s footsteps and raise THE PLAYERS trophy on a marathon Monday? Time will tell. “I was ecstatic,” said Funk, who recorded eight PGA TOUR victories in addition to nine on PGA TOUR Champions. “It was my signature win.”

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