J.T. Poston carded a bogey-free 68 to retain a share of the lead at 11-under on Friday at the RBC Heritage.
Fellow American Tom Hoge and Collin Morikawa shot bogey-free rounds of 64 and 66 repectively for their share of the lead.
“I felt great,” said Hoge. “Nice to make a nice putt right off the bat right there on 1. I felt like I putted really well today was kind of the key. Feel like there’s still a little bit of work left to do ball-striking-wise where I really feel comfortable, so I’m going to go get a little practice this afternoon, but I feel great around the greens, so hopefully I keep going.
“We had very good conditions. I’m sure we’ll have a little more wind for the weekend here as we get going, so just trying to do what the golf course will give us.”
Austria’s Sepp Straka opened with a double bogey at the par-4 1st after his drive hit a spectator in the head but recovered after learning he would be fine and produced eight birdies for a 65 to join the tie for lead.
“He was bleeding,” said Straka. “The medics got to him pretty quickly. He said he was doing all right. Hopefully he’s feeling a little better now than he was back then.
“You never really want to catch a driver on the fly, especially to the head. That was tough. But yeah, hopefully I’ll be able to reach out to him this afternoon and see how he’s doing.”
Sweden’s Ludvig Åberg, Masters runner-up, and Canadian Mackenzie Hughes both shot a bogey-free 66 and lie in fifth place at 10-under.
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler is tied in 10th place at 9-under after a bogey-free 65.
“It was a good day,” said the American, “I felt like I could have shot a lot lower. Felt like I had some putts that were going up and at least had a chance of going in and didn’t. But other than that, yeah, played really good golf. Proud of today’s effort.”
