World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler carded the round of the day Friday to surge atop the leaderboard after Day 2 at the Hero World Challenge in Albany, New Providence, the Bahamas.
A field of 20 players is at Albany Golf Club for the exclusive exhibition event hosted by Tiger Woods.
Scheffler, the event’s defending champion, ended Thursday three shots back of Round 1 leader Cameron Young but came out sizzling on Friday, notching birdies on seven of the first nine holes to move to 7 under and 13-under 131 through 36 holes.
He managed just one more birdie on the par-4 14th but ended the round bogey-free for an 8-under 64, leaving him two shots ahead of Akshay Bhatia (66) and Justin Thomas (67), who are tied for second at 11 under.
“Overall good day, 8 under on this golf course is always a good score. Yeah, pretty solid,” Scheffler said.
Scheffler was sharp from the get-go, birdieing the first four holes. He added two more on Nos. 6 and 7 before knocking in an 8-foot putt for his seventh birdie at No. 9, leaving him at 7-under 29. None of his birdie putts on the first nine holes were longer than 17 feet.
After four straight pars to open the back nine, Scheffler buried a 22-footer for his eighth and final birdie of the day, giving him 14 against just one bogey through the first two rounds.
” … Front nine just things were going my way, back nine maybe not as much,” Scheffler said. “A couple shots could end up closer to the hole, a couple putts go in, just little things.”
Bhatia and Thomas were also efficient, tallying just one bogey each. Bhatia racked up seven birdies to pull even at second with Thomas, who carded six birdies, the last two coming after his bogey on the par-4 13th.
“It just was a very low, low stress 5 under,” Thomas said. “I didn’t feel like I had to grind on the majority of my birdie putts, a lot of them were tap-ins or whatnot. If I can just iron or wedge it just a little closer to the hole tomorrow and get some putts to go in, I feel like I’ve got a really good round out there this weekend.”
Young, who birdied eight holes without a bogey on Thursday, had a disastrous Day 2. After shooting even-par on the front nine, he overrode two birdies with three bogeys before a costly-double bogey on the par-4 18th left him at 3-over 75 for the round.
Young suffered the largest drop on the leaderboard Friday, falling into a three-way tie for 10th at 5 under. The 27-year-old is still hunting his first PGA Tour win.
Keegan Bradley (67) moved up four spots into fourth place at 9 under, while Austria’s Sepp Straka and South Korea’s Sungjae Im both vaulted seven spots into a tie for fifth after shooting 68s.
