Day Two Recap from the Wells Fargo Championship
May
6
Written by:
5/6/2011 11:44 PM
One Half of the 2011 Wells Fargo Championship is in the books. Pat Perez is the clubhouse leader after following up his opening round 67 with a 65 on Friday taking him to -12 and a two shot lead. Day One leader Bill Haas followed up his opening round 64 with a 70 on Friday and is in a tie for second place with Jonathan Byrd (66-68). Crowd favorite Phil Mickelson (69-66) and Lucas Glover (67-68) sit three shots back at -9 going into the weekend. There are 28 players within seven shots of the lead, creating a lot of opportunities for players to make a move over the next 36 holes. Eight-Four players shot Even par or better to make the cut. This tournament has a very nice mix of young up and comers along with some of the Big Names on Tour atop of the leader board. Having Mickelson playing in the next to last group on Saturday (1:35 tee time) should provide a nice level of excitement on Saturday. The only thing better would be for him to be playing in the last group on Sunday.
TIDBITS FROM WELLS FARGO CHAMPIONSHIP
I would like to have $1 for every person that felt the need to yell, “BUBBA!” at Bubba Watson Friday afternoon. Watching Watson play in front of some of the largest galleries Friday afternoon, there was no shortage of fans that wanted to yell out at him.
Funniest shirts seen on the course were from a young group of fans following Lucas Glover. They were walking around in white t-shirts with stenciled lettering saying, “FEAR THE BEARD!”
With the scores already at -12, how low will the scores go this weekend? I can not image the decision makers at the Quail Hollow Club wanting to see this turn into the John Deere Classic and have -20 as a winning score. The pins on Thursday and Friday seemed to be very fair, will they maybe toughen those up on Saturday, or will they blame these low scores on the rain. These greens could be cut and sped up to make shooting par Saturday a good round. (There is also the SubAir system in place to pull the moisture out of the greens.) The forecast doesn’t have rain, but with these cooler temperatures, the greens should not burn up, but can officials get them to firm up and play at the speed they want.
Quail Hollow seems to be a course where if you are going to score, the front nine is where you better do it. Looking in the media center today at scores, the scores were much lower consistently on the outward nine versus the inward nine. Everyone always talks about the closing three holes (named, “The Green Mile”) but what about 11-13. There did not seem to be a lot of movement on these holes today. The two par fives on the back nine (10 & 15) may be the only holes where birdie could come into play for the majority of the field. Fourteen is a short risk-reward hole and Mickelson drove it into the water on Friday and still made a par. The three toughest holes on the course Friday were 18, 17, & 12.
One question that popped up walking around was what is the purpose of par today on Tour? The felling amongst our group was that if you shoot par, shouldn’t you make the cut every week? Par is the number that is set as a goal for everyone on each hole and if you reach that goal for 18 holes, shouldn’t you be rewarded? Even par ended up being the number, so it is not a big deal here, but what about places where the cut is at -3. Is this really fair? I did what I was supposed to do for 18 holes and I am not rewarded?
Anyone looking for my Kentucky Derby winner, I will post it to the Southern Sports Journal Facebook page tomorrow at 6 PM.