Webb Simpson took this championship by the throat today, shook it vigorously, twirled it over his head and only relinquished his strangle hold, slightly, when he sent his tee ball on #17 for a swim. The rest of the field should give thanks to that little wedge shot of a par 3 that kept the spread between Simpson and the players tied for second from a gap of seven shots, or even more.
Simpson tied the course record of 63 but stood at 11 under par as he teed off on #17. His five shot lead is the largest 36 hole margin in tournament history.
Simpson has the type of game that the talking heads constantly say is needed to tame the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course: hit the fairways, hit the greens, putt well and be aggressive when the opportunity presents itself. Simpson was hitting fairways at a 90% clip and, at one point in the round, Golf Channel’s Peter Jacobsen informed us that his strokes gained putting stat was 9, 9 strokes better than the field, an unheard of number.
While Webb was running away to hide with the lead, many of the favorites in the super group pairings were under-performing. Tiger managed a 1 under round and just made the cut. Rickie blew up coming down the back stretch with consecutive doubles and will miss the weekend. So will Phil, who shot himself out of the weekend yesterday. Ditto Rory, who saw his chance for weekend play get all wet on #17.
For a while it looked like 2-under par would be the cut line but Jordan and Justin pushed it back to 1 under with their uninspired play down the last few holes. Both made bogey on #18 which let all those other 1-under’s back in. Tiger should thank the youngsters.
The par of the day on #17 came from David Lingmerth, who’s deep tee ball came to rest on the grassy causeway that links the island green to the mainland. He pitched over the pond to the back shelf of the green and made his three.
Rickie caught a bit of a bad break on #6 when his errant tee ball struck a palm tree and stayed aloft. The ball was visible but, since a positive identification of the ball couldn’t be made, by rule his ball was lost and he had to return to the tee. That’s when he started packing his bag for the trip home.
World number one Dustin Johnson was out of the gate quickly with an eagle 3 on the par 5 second hole but he couldn’t sustain that momentum. He lost his swing, pushing multiple shots right, with both his driver and irons and wound up with three front side bogeys. His mini streak of three back side birdies were a spark but he stalled with bogeys #14 and finished the round at 1 under 71, 7-under for the championship and 8 shots back of the leader.
The temperature heated way up today and there wasn’t much of a cooling breeze early. Golf Channel Analyst Bones McKay talked about how a caddie will continually remind his player that the ball will fly a lot farther in those conditions. To prove his point, Bubba proceed to lace an 8 iron 188 yards to three feet on hole #5 for a kick-in birdie three. Still a mystery why Phil and Bones parted ways.
Paul Tesori might be taking a little heat for his man’s double on #17. Simpson looked very hesitant on the tee, with swirling winds complicating his club selection. Tesori moved back in with the bag twice before Webb committed to the club in hand, a gap wedge. He blocked that baby, otherwise it might have been the right stick. Although, in his post round interview with Golf Channel’s Steve Sands, Webb said “we pulled the wrong club”.
Will be back on the grounds at TPC Sawgrass tomorrow and I’m hoping that some of the trailers make some early and big moves to make this tournament a competition.
