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Watson Holds Up
His Second-Round Score In Morning Leads Field
By Stuart Hall
Kohler, Wisc. - Pity those players who took to The Straits Course at Whistling Straits on Friday afternoon.
Flag-straightening winds and increasingly firmer greens made scoring a tad more difficult. And as dusk approached, the result was a U.S. Senior Open leaderboard that changed ever so slightly from early afternoon morning.
Tom Watson, 57, shot a 6-under 66 to claim the halfway lead at 8 under. Five players, including four who played in the morning, are bunched up behind him at 5-under 139. Sixty-two players advanced to the weekend after the cut was established at 4-over 148.
Watson, the 1982 U.S. Open champion, is the 36-hole leader for the third consecutive year in this championship. Watson went on to tie for fifth and finish second, respectively, on those occasions.
"Yeah, it would be nice to not finish second again and come back with that beautiful trophy; it sure would," he said.
His closest pursuers include Ben Crenshaw (5-under 67), Loren Roberts (69), Ireland's Des Smyth (69) and Lonnie
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| Vicente Fernandez points out his line prior to putting on the ninth green Friday. Fernandez was one of five players that trailed Tom Watson by three strokes. (Steven Gibbons/USGA) |
Nielsen (71). Argentina's Vincente Fernandez (70) joined the group in the final hour of play.
Asked if playing conditions toughened as the day unfolded, Fernandez said, "Yeah, I think so because the greens here was getting firmer and firmer, and it was tough to control it."
Nowhere to be found, though, was Eduardo Romero, who frittered his first-round 66 away with a 5-over 77 that featured a triple bogey 7 on the 18th hole. Afterward, Romero admitted to injuring his back after hitting three drives on the practice range following Thursday's round. He played his round in mild pain, especially when putting.
"Sometimes it happens with the golf," said the 52-year-old Argentinian. "But I'm still 1 under and there is two more rounds to go, and then I have to play good on the weekend."
Watson and his dew-sweeping competitors were the beneficiaries of Wednesday night's heavy rainstorms that softened the par-72, 7,068-yard Pete Dye layout.
"We just had a wonderful day today," Crenshaw said. "This morning, no question. If the wind comes up then we would have maybe have gotten the better half of it."
Blowing in from Lake Michigan, the wind picked up just enough to drive up scoring. The morning produced 16 under-par rounds and 22 of par or better; the afternoon yielded 10 sub-par rounds and 15 of par or better.
"There was still enough wind that you had to think about where you were going and it definitely would push a ball," said Tom Purtzer, who turned in the afternoon's low round, a 5-under 67 that moved him into a seventh-place tie at 4-under 140. "I hit it in a lot of fairway and I think that's the key. That's the key to any kind of USGA event."
Stuart Hall is a writer for the Golf Press Association whose work has appeared previously on www.ussenioropen.com.
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