Professional golf, no matter the entity, has had a number of slogans through the years.
“These Guys Are Good.”. “Live Under Par.” “Where Legends Play.”
Inspirational for sure.
The Kaulig Companies Championship, which resumes with the third round on Saturday on the South Course of Firestone Country Club, does not have a slogan.
After looking at the second-round leaderboard let us suggest one: “And yet another country heard from.”
It’s a united nations leaderboard, is what it is. Run it up the flagpole. Break out the national anthems.
On Friday, players from at least seven nations appeared in the top 15. When the hot and humid day ended, players from five nations were in the top five spots. Diversity at its finest.
At the top is New Zealand’s Steven Alker, one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour Champions, whose five-under par 65 gave him a 36-hole total of 7-under 133 and a one-shot lead over first-round co-leader and defending champion Steve Stricker (66-68), who bleeds red, white and blue.
Right behind the two-time winner and former U.S. Ryder Cup captain is fellow countryman and former champion Kenny Perry and Sweden’s Robert Karlsson, tied at 4-under 136, with Karlsson adding a 66 to an opening 70 and Perry going 67-69.
Then comes Korea’s K.J. Choi (69-68), Argentina’s Angel Cabrera (68-69) and Jerry Kelly (71-66), another former Kaulig champ from middle America. Those three share fifth place at 3-under 137.
South African Ernie Els (70-68) shared eighth place with Americans Rocco Mediate (69-69) and Paul Stankowski (68-70) at 138.
To sum it up we have five Americans and one player each from New Zealand, Argentina, Sweden, the Republic of Korea and South Africa. If Mark Hensby, Michael Wright and Cameron Percy would have had better fortunes we could have had three Australians in the hunt.
Alker, who has seven top-10 finishes this season and stands second on the Charles Schwab money list with a Tour-leading 67.93 scoring average, overtook Stricker by scrambling to a day’s best 65. Several times he recovered from errant tee shots that helped him overcome a double-bogey on the 450-yard fourth hole and post a 32 on the back.
“My little punches under the trees out of the rough is good at the moment,” said Alker, the 2022 Schwab Cup champion. “That was great on the back nine, it worked out well. You know, I scrambled, but in there I kept momentum. I made a great birdie on 15, hit a beautiful iron shot in there. Just kept momentum going, that’s what you need to do.”
Stricker, who can join Bernhard Langer as one of two three-time winners of this event, hit 14 greens, a testament to his accuracy off the tee and from the fairway.
“It was a good ball-striking day,” he said. “I let a few get away really on the greens and that’s been my bugaboo so far this year. Some good putts and then some head scratchers that I don’t know where it’s coming out of. Sometimes I don’t know which barrel it’s coming out of when I’m putting those four- and five-footers.
“I did a lot of good things,” he said. Did a lot of good things, I drove the ball in the fairway or if I just missed, it was first cut or just not very far in the rough, so that part was good. Hit a lot of greens.”
It’s puzzling that Stricker feels putting is his nightmare. He stands third on the Tour with a 1.721 average,
“You know, I may putz around with the one I played with last week in the Senior Open,” he said. “It feels pretty good, it flows a little bit better than mine. I don’t know if it’s the putter or it’s the puttee.”
Stricker, 57, rarely falters when holding the early lead, having won in 2021 and 2023 when getting out front. Still, that provides little comfort.
“No, no, not at all,” he said of his success and holding a lead. “The course is a challenge and you’ve got to be on your game. It can jump up and get you. If you start missing fairways, it becomes very difficult to hit the greens, then you put a lot of pressure on your chipping and putting. Yeah, you can’t let your guard down here at all, you just need to keep plugging and keep doing what I’ve been doing the last couple of days.”
Kelly, the winner here in 2022, and the 54-year-old Karlsson both had the second-lowest round of the day at 66.
Karlsson, who has never won on the PGA Tour or the PGA Tour Champions, birdied three of his first four holes and five of his first seven enroute to a front-nine 30 and a share of the lead at 5-under. A pair of bogeys offset two birdies on the back.
NOTABLE:
Billy Mayfair scored the first hole-in-one of the tournament on the 200-yard fifth. He used a 4-iron . . . First-round co-leader Duffy Waldorf bogeyed three of his first five holes and finished with a 74, leaving him at 140 . . . This is the 11th time Alker, 52, has either led or co-led a PGA Tour Champions event after the second round . . . While Karlsson has yet to win on either tour he has finished second or tied for second five times.
RD2 SCORES: 2024 Kaulig Companies Championship >
— Photos by Allen Freeman
