An untimely double bogey five on the fifth – his 14th – briefly halted Seamus Power’s surge up the leaderboard at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but he continues to improve while Rory McIlroy signed off with a bogey which cost him his best ever round-to-par at the storied Monterey Peninsula links.
Both languishing in the bottom half of the 80-man field after 36 holes, Power and McIlroy both began their moving day rounds on the 10th tee, on the back side of the draw, and despite bogeying two of his opening five holes to sit at +1 for the day, the Waterford man caught fire in the middle third, birdieing the 15th and then reeling off four in a row from the 17th through the second, and then added another at four.
The double-bogey on five saw him fall back out of the provisional top-20, but he regrouped to birdie the sixth and parred his way home to climb into a tie for 31st – one good round away from a very healthy payday and a much needed confidence boost after a sluggish start to the season.
On a day where US Open champion Wyndham Clark came desperately close to shooting 59, the man whose heart he broke at LA Country Club last June was making little headway as he reached the turn at level-par for the day, having just bogeyed the 18th after inexplicably finding the water with his approach to the par-5, missing the green by a wide margin.
He finally got going on the front side, birdieing the par-5 second and then making three birdies in a row starting on the fifth, but his frustrations returned when a heavy-handed chip left him an eight-footer that he slid by on the last, signing off for a bogey and a round of 69, leaving him in a tie for 66th and 15 shots behind Clark.
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