Second round: Reavie sits on top after 36 holes
OAKVILLE, Ontario (AP) -- Chez Reavie picked up a stroke before he even got to Glen Abbey for the third round of the RBC Canadian Open.
Actually, probably before he got out of bed Saturday.
"I'm tired," Reavie said Friday after playing 33 holes to take a two-stroke lead over Eric Axley in the suspended second round. At about 7:45 a.m., that lead went to three when Axley finished his round with a bogey.
"I played really well and I felt fine on the last hole, but when I signed my scorecard I could kind of feel the energy just kind of leave my body."
Reavie was 13 under Friday after opening play Thursday with three straight pars. He finished the rain-delayed first round with a 6-under 65 and had a 64 in the second.
"I got to keep my momentum and just keep playing all day," said Reavie, playing for the sixth straight week. "This is by far my best start. I've been hitting the ball real well all year, but I haven't been scoring real well."
At 13-under 129 the 26-year-old PGA TOUR rookie matched the tournament record for the first 36 holes set by Scott Dunlap in 1996 when Glen Abbey played to a par of 72. The 129 total also matched the best on the PGA TOUR this year.
Axley, one of 63 players unable to finish the second round, was 11 under with a hole left when play was suspended because of darkness, but dropped a stroke on the par-4 ninth for a 67. Brian Davis and Nicholas Thompson were four strokes back at 9 under. They both returned to the course early to play one hole. Davis birdied the 18th for a 64, and Thompson finished with a par on No. 9 for a 66.
Bands of rain showers moved in soon after the second round finished, flooding bunkers and some fairways on the course saturated by 8 inches of rain in a week.
Anthony Kim, tied for 26th at 4 under through 15 holes when play was suspended Friday night, went birdie-birdie-eagle for a 69 to get to 8 under. After playing the front nine in 5-over 40, he shot a 7-under 29 on the back nine.
Billy Mayfair (66), Steve Marino (67) and Briny Baird (65) also were 8 under. Baird played five holes Saturday morning, while Mayfair and Marino finished Friday.
Mike Weir, part of a tournament-record, seven-man tie for the first-round lead after a bogey-free 65 Thursday morning, was even par for 16 holes Friday, then birdied the 18th Saturday for a 70. The Canadian star was 7 under.
"There's tons of golf left," Weir said.
To read the remainder of this story, click here.
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Chez Reavie liked the shot from the moment it left his club and rightfully so, since his third at the par-5 13th bounced once on the green then landed in the hole. At the time, the eagle moved him to 12 under for the day and extended his lead to four strokes.
Of the players who finished, Chez Reavie shot the lowest second-round score. His 7-under 64 not only moved him into the lead but it also matched his career-low round on the PGA TOUR -- an 8-under-par 64 in Round 2 of the 2004 Michelin Championship at Las Vegas, his first TOUR start.| QUOTE OF THE DAY | ||
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BIRDIES LIFT SLUMPING O'HAIR
By Dave Perkins, Special to PGATOUR.COM
OAKVILLE, Ont. -- Sean O'Hair has done something so far in the rain-interrupted RBC Canadian Open that he hasn't done a lot of this year on the PGA TOUR. He has made birdies in bunches.
O'Hair, a 26-year-old native of Lubbock, Texas, fashioned eight birdies against two bogeys over Glen Abbey to grab a share of the tournament's first-round lead at 6-under-par 65, then overcame a pair of consecutive double bogeys with four more birdies in a second round of par 71, leaving him within hailing distance of runaway leader Chez Reavie.
Reavie, a PGA TOUR rookie, led by four shots over Billy Mayfair and Steve Marino (each 134) late in his second round in brilliant sunshine with the golf course slowly drying out after several days of occasionally intense rain.
O'Hair, with a 36-hole total of 136, was 6 under, level with Mark Calcavechhia and a shot behind Carlos Franco and Ken Duke, each at 135. Canada's favorite golfing son, Mike Weir, plus first-round co-leaders Eric Axley and Anthony Kim, teed off late in the day and were due to finish their second rounds Saturday morning.
All those birdies represent a buffet for O'Hair, who stands 203rd this season on the PGA TOUR in birdies, averaging 2.62 per round. Still, he has made his best shots count, assembling a victory, in the PODS Championship, plus a tie for third in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, and sits 24th in the FedExCup standings.
To read the remainder of this story, click here.
WHO IS CHEZ REAVIE?
• A past U.S. Public Links champion. Joining the likes of Tim Clark (1997), Trevor Immelman (1998), D.J. Trahan (2000) and more recently Brandt Snedeker (2003) and Ryan Moore (2002, 2004), Reavie won in 2001 at Pecan Valley G.C., in San Antonio, Texas.
• A Nationwide Tour grad. In 2007, Reavie notched 10 top-25s on the Nationwide Tour and captured his first title at the Knoxville Open. By finishing 18th on the Money List, Reavie was able to advance to the PGA TOUR in 2008.
• A Sun Devil. Reavie played on the same college golf team at Arizona State University with Jeff Quinney, Matt Jones and Jin Park.
• A rookie. In his first full season on the PGA TOUR, Reavie's best finish has been a tie for fifth at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic at the start of the year.
• A car enthusiast. "I've always liked cars, fast cars and expensive cars," Reavie told PGATOUR.COM freelance writer Rudy Klancnik. Wonder what kind of car he'd buy if he earned the big paycheck this week?
To learn more about Reavie, click here.
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TRAFFIC JAM AT THE TOP
When Round 1 wrapped up at 12:31 p.m. ET on Friday afternoon, there was a seven-way tie at the top of the leaderboard. In the 99-year history of the event, that's the most players to share the lead after the first round.
The previous biggest logjam after 18 holes came in 2001 at The Royal Montreal GC when four players -- Tiger Woods, Jim McGovern, Matt Gogel and Michael Muehr -- shared the lead.
Here's what the leaderboard looked like as the first round concluded:
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OFF TO A GOOD START
When Billy Mayfair birdied the par-4 9th hole (his final one of the day), he capped off a second-round 66. That tied his previous lowest round of the '08 season, a year in which Mayfair tied for second at the PODS Championship in March and tied for fourth at the Shell Houston Open a month later but hasn't finished inside the top 10 since.
Mayfair is making his 13th appearance in the Canadian Open and his two-round score represents his best 36-hole score. His best finish came in 1991 when he tied for 14th at Glen Abbey.
"I like Glen Abbey. When I saw in back on the schedule, I obviously put the tournament back on my schedule. Nothing against other golf courses, but I played here when it was here every year. I don't know how many times I've been here, but I've played it year after year after year, and I enjoyed coming here," said Mayfair, who could earn his sixth TOUR victory this week.
"I like the area, I like the setup. I like the golf course. I'm not real fond of the holes down in the valley, but I played them good this year."
| 19 | Number of Canadians playing this week. |
| 6 | Number of Canadians currently above the cutline. |
| 14 | Position on the leaderboard of the highest ranked Canadian (Mike Weir). |
Mayfair made six birdies and one bogey in his second round. He also hit 86 percent of his fairways during Round 2 and has hit the green in regulation 77.8 percent of the time this week.
Currently 81st in the FedExCup standings, Mayfair understands the importance of finishing strong before the start of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.
"Last year was a great example. I finished second in Greensboro a week before it started and I jumped from 70th to up to about 30th or 40th, it let me in the first three and I tried to get in the fourth one (THE TOUR Championship), which I wasn't able to," Mayfair said. "But it jump-started me in getting me into the Playoffs.
"I think that's what a lot of guys are trying to do right now. They're trying to position themselves for when the Playoffs start, which is kind of a neat idea."
THINGS TO WATCH ON SATURDAY
1. The cut. The players who didn't finish their second round on Friday will have to return on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. Currently the cutline sits at 1 under.
2. Anthony Kim. What a roller-coaster start for the young star. He made double bogey on his first hole of the second round, then followed that up with three more bogeys in the next six holes. But right before play was suspended, Kim birdied the 11th and made eagle on No. 13. He has three holes left on Saturday.
3. Eric Axley. He only has one hole to go on Saturday morning and Axley was 5 under in his second round. He sits just two strokes behind Reavie and could move within a shot before the third round begins.
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