McKinney, Texas — The 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson Championship is halfway done and is none other than Scottie Scheffler of Dallas, who alone sits atop the leaderboard through 36 holes. In pursuit of a home win, Scheffler continued the momentum of the first round of 64, repeating that score Friday to take a one-stroke lead over the weekend at TPC Craig Ranch on the outskirts of the Dallas metropolitan complex- McKinney’s Fort Worth.
Nelson serves as the final tweak to next week’s PGA Championship and completing his own backyard work would be a meaningful feat for the world No. 2 before the tournament. second biggest of the season. Scheffler won Texas at last year’s WGC Match Play in Austin, but he’s yet to win either of the two North Texas-based annual Tour events. Scheffler’s best to date at Nelson was a 15th-place draw in last year’s event, two weeks before he lost in the playoffs in the Charles Schwab Challenge at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.
As the well-known and beloved name entered the Nelson tournament this year, Scheffler hopes to have more customers backing him up over the next two days. Although the wet weather has stopped for now, rain forecasts are still in place for Saturday and Sunday as the 26-year-old looks to fend off challengers and make it a memorable weekend ahead of the tournament. second biggest of the season.
“It’s going to be interesting,” said Scheffler. “Hopefully the hometown fans come out tomorrow and we’ll see what happens to the rest of the standings. I don’t know what the weather will be like this afternoon, it’s still early in the day. Friday, but we’ll see what happens when the weekend starts. But I don’t think we’ll be too far behind. [at worst]. We’re definitely in a good position to head into the weekend.”
Here’s a closer look at the second round for Scheffler and those in pursuit, including another golfer vying for his first home win.
Leader
1. Scottie Scheffler (-14)
As it turns out, a 4:20 a.m. wake-up call to play ball at 7:34 a.m. isn’t so bad when you’re enjoying the comforts of your own home. The relatively quiet conditions also helped produce a low score in the morning before the Texas winds picked up in the afternoon, and Scheffler took advantage of the lead halfway through the event.
Scheffler had a birdie-birdie start after teeing off on the 10th hole par-4, bringing him down six points in his last seven holes at the time after scoring two birdies and an eagle in last five holes on Thursday. Scheffler’s eight birdies on Friday tied with most golfers on the course, and he made no mistake until he struggled with his approach shot on the second to last hole of the course. day, 8th hole par-4. Scheffler recovered with a birdie that finished at par-5 on the ninth, after taking a kindly look at the eagle.
“It was great to get some early birdies in this place,” says Scheffler. “Obviously, the scores are pretty low, so it’s nice that you can get off to a good start.”
In his view, Scheffler will probably need to maintain a low score to win an event considered a bird festival in recent years: 25 points below winning at Craig Ranch in 2021, and The bottom 26 points got the job done in 2022.
Others are arguing
T2. Ryan Palmer, Mackenzie Hughes (-13)
4. Si Woo Kim (-11)
5. Werenski is rich (-10)
Arguably, another golfer playing in his backyard sitting right behind Scheffler when the stakes increased at Craig Ranch made sense. Palmer, who resides in nearby Colleyville, trailed a 7 under 64 on Thursday with a 6 under 65 on Friday to maintain his lead through 36 holes. Palmer’s round featured seven birdies and a three under 32 on the latter nine, bogey-free golf in the last 16 holes.
A four-time winner on the Tour, Palmer, 46, is looking for a bit of a boost with two events being held in his home state of Texas this month. Palmer slipped four straight slides before finishing with a 35th-place draw at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. He flirted with Nelson’s win in 2011 before losing in the playoffs at TPC Las Colinas in Irving, and he is the 36-hole leader at last year’s event at Craig Ranch.
Palmer said: “The work that I have invested in it, it was shown last week, for the first time in a long time. “It’s not the end you want, but when I look back at 35th place last week, it was a start and we’re getting closer. It’s done and showing right now. .”
As for the other man held to a draw with Palmer, Hughes played cleanly from start to finish, but it wasn’t until the end of the half that his two-time Tour champion came to the fore. Hughes played his last five holes under-5, including a chip-in birdie on the par-4 on the 16th, en route to a 7 under 64 and under-13 for the event. After the birdie on the par-3 on the 17th, it looked like Hughes would catch Scheffler at under-14 to share the lead, but he was forced to accept a par-5 on the 18th that could be. approach.
However, Hughes will have no shortage of motivation heading into the weekend after taking on Scheffler and Harrison Endycott in the low round of the day. And that’s after missing cuts in his two most recent starts at the RBC Heritage and Wells Fargo Championship. Hughes has a win this season, beating Sepp Straka in the playoffs to win the Sanderson Farms championship this past fall.
KH Lee’s journey to find three peatlands to support life
Two-time defending champion Nelson flirted with an early disqualification, cutting the scoreline to a bottom 4 for the event. Lee scored 3 under 68 in the first round – a modest score compared to the regular lows at Craig Ranch – before scoring 1 under 70 on Friday just enough to go through. Lee spent most of the second round outside of the expected cut, and it was his birdie on the last hole of the day that earned him the weekend’s spot. Alas, it will take a prodigious effort for Lee, who is leading 10 shots, to have any chance of becoming the sixth player in the past 50 years to win the same Tour event three times in a row.
