Séamus Power had set himself a tough task after a three-over opening round at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial, but a six-stroke improvement on day two means he’ll have weekend work after all.
The Waterford man was out early on Friday and quickly clawed back two of the shots with back-to-back birdies. The first came courtesy of a neat bunker shot from the greenside trap on the par-5 opener and he cleaned up a four-footer, and he rolled in his second from similar distance on the second after a crushing drive and pinpoint wedge.
His short game and lag putting kept him a -2 until the seventh, where a sublime 165-yard approach from a fairway bunker set up his third birdie of the day. From there, he parred the closing 11 holes, with his short game and putting coming to the rescue on several occasions.
After a nervous wait, 61 players finished at -1 meaning that the 18 on level-par would all survive and Power can now turn his attention to pushing his way up the leaderboard and gathering valuable FedEx Cup points and prizemoney.
And he’s in good company around the cutline as Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth, residents of nearby Dallas, also narrowly avoided missing the weekend.
Scheffler finished with a shot to spare while Spieth joined Power on the exact mark.
Both players have a strong history at Colonial Country Club. Spieth won the Charles Schwab in 2016 and has secured nine top-20 finishes in 12 starts. Scheffler, who triumphed at the PGA Championship last week, has competed in the tournament five times since 2020, achieving a share of third or better in the last three years. Scheffler bogeyed his final hole on Friday, nudging the cut line to minus-1, though it later shifted to even par. Spieth birdied the 17th hole to scrape through.
“The holes have seemed smaller than the golf ball for me for about a month now,” Spieth remarked.
American Ben Griffin and Germany’s Matti Schmid share the lead at 11-under, with Jon Pak solo-third at -9, Chris Gotterup solo fourth at -8, and Ryo Hisatsune and Akshay Bhatia sharing fifth on -7 in a spread out leaderboard that will give hope to anyone who survived the half-way chop.
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