NASSAU, BAHAMAS — U.S. Open champion JJ Spawn transformed two of his three eagle probabilities, Cameron Younger shot 30 on the again 9 and Hideki Matsuyama had no bogeys to affix a five-way tie for the lead at Friday’s Hero World Problem.
Scotty Scheffler briefly took the lead, however misplaced his share of the lead.
Scheffler held an 18-foot eagle putt on the par-5 fifteenth simply as Younger lastly calmed down after lacking an 8-foot par putt on the 18th. This put Scheffler at 11 below and held a one-stroke lead via the opening.
He missed his tee shot for the second day in a row on the sixteenth, however this time he needed to take a penalty shot to flee from the palm bushes. He then misjudged his blind shot and caught the highest of one other palmetto bush, leading to a double bogey.
Akshay Bhatia birdied the 18th gap for a 68, trailing former U.S. Open champion Windham Clark (68), Spawn (68), Matsuyama (66) and Younger (64).
At Albany Golf Membership, he shot a 10-under 134 and entered the weekend with a two-stroke lead over almost half of the 20-person subject.
Spaun made solely 5 eagles all season, after which had an opportunity to attain. He hit a 3-wood to three toes on the par-5 sixth and hit his tee shot 5 toes out on the par-4 14th, each for eagle. He narrowly missed a 15-foot eagle putt on the par-5 fifteenth.
That helped him recuperate from two bogeys on the primary 4 holes.
“I did not get off to an amazing begin, however I used to be in a position to acquire a reasonably respectable spherical,” Spaun stated.
In her final event earlier than her marriage, Bhatia made a nifty par save from simply wanting the sixteenth inexperienced on the finish, chipping off the inexperienced right into a bunker on the par-3 seventeenth for bogey, however she exploded and sank a 15-foot putt to cease issues from getting worse.
This week’s new caddy is Joe Greiner, Max Homa’s longtime looper till earlier this yr. Batia likes that Greiner can be left-handed and may talk.
Scheffler shot a 69, tying him with Alex Nolen (66) and Sepp Straka (69) at 9-under 135, whereas former Albany resident Justin Rose additionally acquired yet one more again with a 68.
“I assumed we did some good issues there. We made a little bit too many errors, however we nonetheless felt fairly good general,” Scheffler stated.
Billy Horschel shot a 68 and was 5 strokes again. He missed a lot of this yr resulting from hip surgical procedure and is the one participant within the 20-man subject to not qualify for the Masters. Horschel is ranked forty fifth on this planet, and solely the highest 50 gamers on the finish of the yr will qualify for the Masters, however an excellent efficiency may clinch the rating.
