In a small but strong field, such as the one here in the USD 3.5 million Hero World Challenge, changes on the leaderboard come fast and sometimes, furiously.
On Thursday, six of the players shared the lead at some point during a calm, windless day’s action at the Albany Golf Course here. Before the last card was signed, the reigning Masters winner Patrick Reed fired a curling 12-footer for a final-hole birdie and caught up with a blemish-less Patrick Cantlay at seven-under 65 for a three-shot lead.
If Cantlay found seven birdies, including a flurry of five on the last six holes, Reed kept pace with eight birdies — most for the day — against the lone, eighth-hole bogey. The two thrived in near-perfect conditions and attacked the pins with some quality iron-play. On these lightning quick greens, Cantlay read the lines well and stroked the putts just a shade better than his namesake.
Taking turns
Henrik Stenson, Dustin Johnson, 2015 winner Bubba Watson and Alex Noren took turns to share the lead before the Patricks broke away.
Five-time winner and host Tiger Woods, clearly under the weather for the past week, birdied twice on the last four holes for a 73 to be joint second last. Tiger’s triple-bogey on the par-3 12th hole sent him tumbling to the last spot before the late birdies pulled him out of the cellar.
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After two bogeys in five holes, Tiger evened it with successive birdies. A great second shot on the 11th hole set him put for a possible birdie but he over-hit his first putt from fringe of the green and eventually saved par.
What followed was a horrendous triple-bogey. After landing his approach shot close to the greenside water-hazard, Tiger duffed a chip saw the ball roll back into the water, behind him. Overall, Tiger drove well but this signature iron-play was nowhere close to his best. To make it worse, the putts did not come off.
Uphill task
Considering that the winning score here has been -18 or under, Tiger needs a very low score to stay in contention over the weekend.
Ranking favourite Justin Rose, one among those with an impressive birdie-record this season, nine of the first 10 holes, fired an ‘eagle’ on the 11th to move to -3. But the joy proved short-lived as a double-bogey on the next pushed him back. Thereafter, the World No. 2 could find only one more birdie on the remaining six holes to share the seventh place.
- 65 - Patrick Cantlay and Patrick Reed;
- 68 - Henrik Stenson (Swe) and Dustin Johnson;
- 69 - Alex Noren (Swe) and Bubba Watson;
- 70 - Justin Rose (Eng), Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau;
- 71 - Keegan Bradley, Jon Rahm (Esp) and Jason Day (Aus);
- 72 - Tony Finau, Gary Woodland and Rickie Fowler;
- 73 - Xander Schauffele and Tiger Woods;
- 74 - Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn).
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