Matt Wallace signed for a bogey-free 66 to move to the top of the leaderboard at 11-under on Friday in his Corales Puntacana Championship debut.
— coraleschamp (@CoralesChamp) March 25, 2023
“Nice day. I hit it probably a little bit better than yesterday, so didn’t think that was possible but it’s nice to have that in the bank now and confidence has grown.
“I want to just keep playing the way I’m playing, doesn’t matter where I am on the leaderboard. I was saying to Sam out there, like if we’re at the top of the leaderboard and I want to keep pushing and playing really good golf and see where that puts me because then I know what my levels are. So I felt like I had a few shorter clubs in today into wind, didn’t really give myself birdie chances so I want to try and elevate that come the weekend and keep doing what I’m doing off the tee, which is really nice, and then holed a couple putts coming in at the end there so I stayed patient. So yeah, very happy.”
The Englishman holds the second-round lead/co-lead for the second time on Tour (2021 Wells Fargo Championship/T6). In eleven starts this season his best finish was T7 at last week’s Valspar Championship.
PGA TOUR rookie Sam Stevens closed with a 65 for a share of second place at 10-under alongside fellow American Wyndham Clark who closed with a bogey-free 65. Clark eagled the par-5 4th in rounds one and two.
“I played really good on the front, I was 1 under, felt like I should have been a lot more through the first kind of six, seven holes,” said Clark. “Then really made a big putt on 18 for birdie, which kind of made it feel like I didn’t waste that side.
“Then on the front side I really played nice, I had a birdie look pretty much every hole. Yeah, eagling 4 obviously really got the round going. Yeah, but it was all in all really solid, I hit it good, made some putts on the back, everything was clicking.”
Special Temporary Member Akshay Bhatia (US) tied the 18-hole tournament scoring record with a second-round 9-under 63 and recorded a career-high number of birdies in a round with nine (previous: 8/2023 Puerto Rico Open/R4) as well as an eagle at the par-5 7th.
“You just never know with this game. Yesterday I didn’t make any putts, I had 34 putts, I hit it really solid. I wasn’t expecting to play this event, so I got in pretty late Tuesday, only played like six, seven holes and it was just fun to put myself in contention. But today I made a lot more putts and I hit it just as good as I did yesterday. Hopefully keep it up and it will be exciting the next couple days.”
Bhatia shares third place at 8-under with compatriots Tyler Duncan (65) and former champion Brice Garnett (70) as well as Denmark‘s Nicolai Hojgaard (65).
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Defending champion Chad Ramey withdrew prior to the start of his second round due to a back injury.
