Shane Lowry pitched in for eagle on the final hole of his second round at the Honda Classic to card a round of 66 and keep himself in the mix, five shots behind leader Aaron Wise.
Lowry, who finished eighth in last week’s Players with his newly adopted putting grip, continued his momentum to what is effectively a home event these days (he and family have moved into the Palm Beach area in recent times) but had dropped a shot at the Par 3 17th.
However, on the Par 5 finisher, after hitting his second shot up to short left of the green, he showed off his excellent short game to find the bottom of the hole for an eagle three and a halfway total of seven under par.
US native Wise carded two eagles of his own – on the 18th and the third after beginning on the 10th – for a round of 64 to lead at 12 under, three clear of Brandon Hagy and Matt Jones.
Earlier in his round, Lowry birdied the Par 5 third hole with a good recovery chip from greenside rough and sank a 12 footer for his birdie. After dropping a shot on the Par 3 seventh to turn in level-par 35, the Offalyman showed some great form on the homeward run with birdies on the 10th (from 32 feet), the 12th (from nine feet) and on the 16th (from 14 feet). The dropped shot on the 17th threatened to leave a sour taste from what was a good round but the closing eagle at the 18th put paid to that.
Three shots off the lead and tied with Jones in second place is Hagy – a 29-year-old American ranked 348th in the world, and who only got a late, late ticket into the Honda Classic field following positive Covid-19 tests which resulted in a series of enforced withdrawals – proved at PGA National in Florida. A bogey-free second round 62 for a midway total of nine-under-par 131 enabled him to move into rarified territory on a course traditionally seen as one of the toughest tour stops of the season.
Chasing a breakthrough win on the PGA Tour, and with missed cuts in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Puerto Rico Open in his last two appearances, Hagy defied that poor form with a run of six birdies and an eagle – on the 18th, his ninth hole of the second round – to move into contention for a career-defining win.
Hagy only got a late call-up into the field after Kramer Hickok was one of a number of players forced to withdraw, and he followed up an opening round 69 with a career low 62 in the unlikeliest of circumstances.
As he described it, Hagy’s call up was “pretty hectic”.
He explained: “My initial plan was to do the Monday qualifier and if I didn’t make it, do the Korn Ferry tournament. Then I scrapped the whole trip and was just going to practice for the week and go to Dominican from Scottsdale. Then on Tuesday I was practicing at Whisper Rock [in Arizona] and I checked my number and I was two out, so I’m like, ‘okay, I probably should get a flight’. So I got a flight, got in late, actually early Wednesday morning, did my Covid test, and that was that.”
Hagy certainly made the most of his late call-up into the field for the event at PGA National, where the notorious Bear Trap – the holes from the 15th to the 17th – have earned a reputation as one of the toughest of all closing stretches on the US circuit, as Pádraig Harrington discovered in exiting the tournament with a second round 78 for 150, 10-over-par.
Harrington had two balls in the water in running up a quadruple bogey seven on the 15th hole and was again in water off the tee on the 16th as he followed up with a double bogey six. Graeme McDowell carded a second round of 69 but the damage had been done on Thursday with an opening 79 as he missed the cut.
Lee Westwood’s great run of recent weeks – second in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and also runner-up in the Players championship – came to an abrupt end, at least giving him a weekend off to recharge the batteries ahead of next week’s WGC-Dell Matchplay championship in Texas.
“This was probably a tournament too far for me, after the run I’ve had the last two weeks. But I felt like I should play here this week. But in an ideal world this would have been a week off after finishing second the last two weeks. What can you do? It just felt like one I had to play. But I was kind of glazed over out there I was so tired,” admitted Westwood.
Collated Collated second round scores & totals in the USPGA Tour The Honda Classic, PGA National (Champion), Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, United States of America (USA unless stated, Par 70):
128 Aaron Wise 64 64
131 Matt Jones (Aus) 61 70, Brandon Hagy 69 62
132 Sam Ryder 69 63
133 Scott Harrington 66 67, Russell Henley 64 69, Shane Lowry (Irl) 67 66, Denny McCarthy 68 65
134 Camilo Villegas (Col) 69 65
135 Stewart Cink 71 64, Brice Garnett 71 64, Harry Higgs 68 67, Zach Johnson 67 68, Robert Streb 69 66, Cameron Tringale 67 68
136 Kevin Chappell 66 70, Jason Dufner 68 68, Will Gordon 67 69, J. B. Holmes 69 67, Sung Jae Im (Kor) 68 68, Joaquin Niemann (Chi) 69 67, Adam Scott (Aus) 69 67, Kevin Streelman 69 67, Harold Varner III 71 65
137 Cameron Davis (Aus) 66 71, Lucas Glover 71 66, Adam Hadwin (Can) 72 65, Steve Stricker 66 71, Michael Thompson 71 66, Jimmy Walker 69 68
138 Keegan Bradley 69 69, Rickie Fowler 70 68, Brian Gay 71 67, John Huh 68 70, Chase Koepka 69 69, William McGirt 69 69, Keith Mitchell 69 69, Matthew NeSmith 70 68, Adam Schenk 72 66, Brendan Steele 73 65, Sepp Straka (Aut) 68 70
139 Bronson Burgoon 69 70, Lucas Herbert (Aus) 70 69, Chris Kirk 68 71, Nate Lashley 68 71, Tyler McCumber 70 69, Phil Mickelson 71 68, Alexander Noren (Swe) 71 68, Chengtsung Pan (Tai) 67 72, Charl Schwartzel (Rsa) 70 69, Jhonattan Vegas (Ven) 71 68, D. J. Trahan 68 71
140 Mackenzie Hughes (Can) 68 72, Tom Lewis (Eng) 74 66, Roger Sloan (Can) 71 69, Erik van Rooyen (Rsa) 70 70, Vincent Whaley 73 67
141 Ryan Armour 70 71, Talor Gooch 72 69, Jim Herman 70 71, Beau Hossler 71 70, Mark Hubbard 68 73, Satoshi Kodaira (Jpn) 70 71, Pat Perez 72 69, Ted Potter Jr. 70 71, Chase Seiffert 67 74, Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Tha) 70 71, Stephen Stallings Jr. 71 70
The following players missed the cut:
142 Byeong-Hun An (Kor) 72 70, Wyndham Clark 70 72, Tyler Duncan 74 68, Jim Furyk 70 72, Russell Knox (Sco) 70 72, Anirban Lahiri (Ind) 72 70, Troy Merritt 74 68, Seung-Yul Noh (Kor) 70 72, Nick Taylor (Can) 72 70, Richy Werenski 69 73, Xinjun Zhang (Chn) 71 71
143 Austin Cook 74 69, Luke Donald (Eng) 76 67, David Hearn (Can) 73 70, Patton Kizzire 71 72, Kelly Kraft 71 72, Henrik Norlander (Swe) 71 72, Cameron Percy (Aus) 69 74, Ian Poulter (Eng) 71 72, Patrick Rodgers 70 73, Matt Wallace (Eng) 74 69
144 Dylan Frittelli (Rsa) 75 69, Bo Hoag 71 73, Michael Kim 74 70, Luke List 75 69, Adam Long 68 76, Ryan Moore 72 72, Kristoffer Ventura (Nor) 73 71, Rhein Gibson (Aus) 74 70
145 Scott Brown 71 74, Rafael Campos (Pur) 70 75, K. J. Choi (Kor) 73 72, Doug Ghim 72 73, Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Kor) 72 73, Chez Reavie 70 75, Scott Stallings 74 71, Joseph Bramlett 66 79
146 Rafael Cabrera (Spa) 75 71, Tom Hoge 74 72, Maverick McNealy 76 70, Zachary Zaback 77 69, Marcelo Rozo (Col) 77 69
147 Chesson Hadley 74 73, J. T. Poston 74 73, Robby Shelton 74 73, Vijay Singh (Fij) 74 73, Vaughn Taylor 77 70, Brandon Wu 74 73
148 Michael Gligic (Can) 72 76, Ryo Ishikawa (Jpn) 78 70, Graeme McDowell (NIrl) 79 69, Hudson Swafford 72 76, Lee Westwood (Eng) 70 78
149 Hank Lebioda 75 74, Hunter Mahan 77 72, Alan Morin 75 74, Erik Compton 70 79, J. J. Spaun 74 75, Sebastian Cappelen (Den) 75 74
150 Pádraig Harrington (Irl) 72 78, Jamie Lovemark 78 72, Rob Oppenheim 75 75
151 Peter Malnati 75 76, Grayson Murray 76 75, Brian Stuard 79 72, Bo Van Pelt 76 75
152 Wesley Bryan 74 78, Sung-Hoon Kang (Kor) 76 76, Andrew Landry 79 73
153 Martin Kaymer (Ger) 77 76, Rory Sabbatini (Svk) 79 74, Henrik Stenson (Swe) 78 75
157 Martin Trainer 72 85
160 Kamaiu Johnson 81 79
