Second round: Kim's on top again at challenging venue
ATLANTA (AP) -- Anthony Kim and Sergio Garcia did enough at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola on Friday to set up a Ryder Cup rematch.
Kim had to settle for a 1-under 69, making bogey from the bunker on the final hole, to take a two-shot lead over Garcia and put them in the final pairing just six days after their leadoff singles match at the Ryder Cup.
Kim won that match, 5 and 4, and the Americans followed him to victory at Valhalla.
"We had one play of golf -- really, 14 holes of golf," Kim said, trying to downplay the pairing and instead drawing laughter.
He was at 7-under 133, and while Kim will have a 2-up lead of sorts on Saturday at East Lake, the momentum might lie with Garcia. He was 4 over through his first six holes of the tournament, rallied for a 70, then followed that with nearly flawless play for a 65.
Not to be forgotten was Kim's tag-team partner from the Ryder Cup -- 2000 champion Phil Mickelson, who ran off five birdies over the last seven holes for a 68 that put him three shots behind.
And there's more at stake than just $1.26 million and an elite title for the winner. Mickelson, Garcia and Kim are the top contenders to win the Vardon Trophy for the lowest adjusted scoring average on the PGA TOUR.
"We still have a lot of golf left this weekend that will probably decide it," Mickelson said.
They were among six players in the 30-man field who managed to break par over two days, joined by Camilo Villegas (66) at 2-under 138, and K.J. Choi (70) and Mike Weir (69) at 139.
Kim, whose opening 64 was eight shots better than the field average, looked as though he might go even lower when he stuffed his approach inside 3 feet on the first hole and hit two more approaches inside 6 feet through five holes.
But he made enough mistakes -- a pair of three-putt bogeys on the front nine -- to keep enough players in range.
"I feel pretty positive about shooting under par on this golf course and not feeling like I got a lot out of my game," he said.
Ernie Els played in the final group with Kim and was trying to stay with him until pulling his tee shot into the water on the 17th and taking double bogey, sending him to a 71 to finish eight shots out of the lead.
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| Friday's Best |
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The par-5, 525-yard 15th was the easiest with a Friday scoring average of 4.367.
The par-3, 235-yard 18th hole was the toughest with a Friday scoring average of 3.333.
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It was the toughest hole of the day but Kevin Sutherland made it look easy. On the par-3 18th hole, Sutherland found himself in the rough to the left of the green but he chipped in to make one of just three birdies on the final hole on Friday. 
Sergio Garcia's 5-under 65 didn't include a bogey until the very last hole. Garcia caught leader Anthony Kim at one point when the Spaniard rattled off four birdies in five holes but then made the turn and closed with seven pars, a birdie and a bogey. | QUOTE OF THE DAY | ||
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GARCIA'S BACK ON TRACK IN ATLANTA
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
ATLANTA -- The Sergio Garcia everyone expected to see at Valhalla last week surfaced Friday at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.
Europe's Mr. Ryder Cup was nothing if not on top of his game as he fired a 65 that pulled him within two strokes of his singles nemesis, Anthony Kim, at the midway point of the finale of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.
The turnaround has been decisive -- and quick. The normally fiery Garcia had inexplicably gone winless in four matches at Valhalla, capping off an extremely frustrating week by losing to an equally feisty Kim 5 and 4 on Sunday.
Garcia struggled out of the gate on Thursday, too, making two bogeys and a double bogey in his first six holes at East Lake. He's 9 under, though, over his last 25 and suddenly finds himself playing with Kim in Saturday's final group at 11:25 a.m.
Garcia would later correct a reporter trying to be generous and call his start "slower than slow." The wake-up call came at the fifth hole in the first round when his tee shot disappeared into a bush and Garcia made the double.
"After that I managed to get it back and it got me going in the right direction," he said. "Got some good momentum on my side and started rolling the ball nicely. Made a couple putts here and there.
"I guess it's just the way the game is, so happy about shooting 5 under today."
Garcia was equally philosophical about the Ryder Cup.
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REMATCH: KIM V. GARCIA?
By Mike McAllister, PGATOUR.COM Managing Editor
ATLANTA -- It took Rocky Balboa more than two years before he appeared on the big screen again for his grudge match with Apollo Creed. It took the Celtics 21 years to avenge their loss in the 1987 NBA Finals to the Lakers. Heck, the Trojans are still waiting to face the Greeks again after that whole Trojan horse fiasco 3,000 years ago.
Sergio Garcia, meanwhile, needed just six days before getting another shot at Anthony Kim.
But before you go thinking that Saturday's final pairing of Kim and Garcia in the third round of THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola is going to be a bitter, angst-driven rematch between two young heavyweights, well, please stop your imagination from running amok.
When Kim and Garcia dueled during Sunday's opening Singles match of the Ryder Cup, they had more than just personal pride on the line. Each one carried the weight of his team on his shoulders, knowing that a good start could set the tone for the rest of the day.
Saturday at East Lake, they will go off last instead of first. They will be playing for themselves, playing on moving day, playing to put themselves in a position to make a run at THE TOUR Championship title and the $1.26 million first prize on Sunday, as well as a potential $3 million bonus for second place in the FedExCup.
They will play with intensity, just like they did at Valhalla. But it will be a different kind of intensity.
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SINGH OVERWHELMED AT EAST LAKE
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
ATLANTA -- Who could blame him?
Everywhere Vijay Singh has gone this week, people have been congratulating him. Way to go, Vijay. What are you going to with all that money, Vijay?
When you're four rounds and a signature away from winning the FedExCup and its $10 million bonus, you can be forgiven for losing a little concentration.
Singh would be the first one to tell you he hasn't played as well as he expected during the first two rounds of THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. His rounds of 73-74 have included 11 bogeys and just four birdies, and he's been a non-factor this week.
The man who won the first two events of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup came to East Lake having never finished lower than ninth. It would now take a dramatic turnaround this weekend for Singh to approach yet another top-10, though.
"When I started off I was a little bit too overwhelmed with the situation I was in," Singh said with a wry smile. "Wherever you go, whatever I did yesterday, it was like people were congratulating me before the tournament even started.
"I want to get congratulated after the tournament. So that kind of plays a weird thing in your mind. I tried to keep focused. Two more days, see what I can do."
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| What the leaders said... | ||||||||||||||||
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TIDBITS FROM THE COURSE
Robert Allenby finished up his 4-under 66 that moved him into the top 10 on the leaderboard.
| 0 | The number of eagles made during Friday's second round. |
| 0 | Also the number of bogey-free rounds the very challenging East Lake GC has given up this week. |
| 5 | How many past winners of THE TOUR Championship led wire-to-wire to earn their victory. |
Allenby shot a 5-over 75 in the first round. The Australian had tinkered with his swing during the two-week break, but said he was a lot more comfortable on Friday than on Thursday.
"Yesterday I was still working on the changes," Allenby told XM radio. "Today, I just hit the shots that were required."
Allenby is making his fourth TOUR start at East Lake, and he said the course is playing extremely tough.
"It's a golf course if you miss the fairway, you get penalized pretty badly," he said, adding that the greens "are probably the hardest on TOUR."
Yet the greens are not unfamiliar to Allenby. He said his home course, Admiral's Cove in Jupiter, Fla., put in the same greens -- Mini-Verde ultra dwarf bermudagrass -- a year ago that East Lake has now installed.
The firm greens have made scoring difficult for the 30-man field this week.
"Next year it will be a totally different golf course," Allenby said. "The greens will be a lot more receptive."
Did you miss Day 2 at East Lake? Click here to read more updates like this from the entire second round brought to you by our staff at the course.
INSIDE THE ROPES WITH THE PGA TOUR NETWORK XM
Radio announcer Brian Katrek offers these observations from Friday's action. Listen to PGA TOUR Live coverage on XM 146 or right here at PGATOUR.COM.
There is so much history here at East Lake that some of it slips by. The clubhouse still bears the logo of the Atlanta Athletic Club. Members of the Atlanta Athletic Club moved to the suburbs in 1968 and built their 36-hole complex that has hosted multiple majors and will host the PGA Championship again in 2011. But, unnoticed by most, the clubhouse here still shows its roots...
These new greens weren't green, even when we started. This year, it was a good thing. Last year, the greens suffered through a near record drought and were in bad shape. This year, the new Bermuda greens are in perfect shape, but started the week with a championship shade of purple. Not to worry, they are perfectly healthy and will be fine for a long time to come...
An interesting quirk about the mostly quirk-less layout was on display when the last group of the day made the turn. As Anthony Kim and Ernie Els headed to the east side of the golf course for the back nine, all of the spectators went with them. This cleared out the entire west side of the course. I can't think of a smaller piece of property that hosts a PGA TOUR event, yet half of it was empty on Friday afternoon...
FACTS AND STATS: MORE ON GARCIA, ALLENBY, MICKELSON
Compiled by Elias Sports Bureau, Inc.
• Sergio Garcia shot a 30 on the front-nine and even par on the back nine on Friday at THE TOUR Championship, which was good enough to put him in second place. Garcia has only had three nine-hole scores lower then a 30 on TOUR. In the first round of the 1999 GTE Byron Nelson Classic, Sergio shot a 29 on the front nine, a score he matched on the front-nine in the final round of the 2001 MasterCard Colonial and again on the front nine in the third round of the 2006 British Open Championship.
• Robert Allenby recovered from a poor opening round at THE TOUR Championship with a 4-under par 66 today. In the first round Allenby struggled and shot a 5-over par 75. This is only the third time in his career where he has recovered from a round of 5-over par or worse with a round of 4-under par or better in the following round. In the first round of the 2000 BellSouth Classic he shot a first round 6-over par 78 and responded by shooting a second round 5-under par 67 but still failed to make the cut. At THE TOUR Championship in 2001, Allenby shot a first-round 5-over par 76 followed by a 4-under par 67. Allenby went on to finish tied for 22nd.
• Phil Mickelson looked like he was taking himself out of contention in the second round at East Lake GC when he played the first 10 holes at 3-over par. Mickelson rallied on the back-nine, making five birdies over a six-hole span from Nos. 12-17. Mickelson has had two instances where he was able to make six birdies through six holes, both coming in the second round of the 1997 Las Vegas Invitational where he shot seven straight birdies to finish the day.
THINGS TO WATCH ON SATURDAY
1. Mike Weir, who's currently tied for fifth, could make history if he earns a win this weekend. With eight PGA TOUR wins under his belt, Weir is currently tied with Canadian George Knudson. If Weir gets win No. 9 at East Lake, he'd be the winningest PGA TOUR golfer in Canadian history.
2. Phil Mickelson. He only hit the fairway three out of seven times on the front nine on Friday and found the green in regulation just four of nine times in his first nine holes. If Lefty can get more accurate on Nos. 1-9 on Saturday, he might move up from his current tie for third.
3. The Vardon Trophy race. The PGA of America annually awards its Vardon Trophy to the player with the lowest scoring average over a minimum of 60 rounds. The PGA TOUR also awards the Byron Nelson Award to the player with the lowest adjusted scoring average with a minimum of 50 rounds. The race is on for these awards, as Phil Mickelson currently leads with a 69.52 average while Sergio Garcia is thisclose to catching him with a 69.53 average. Anthony Kim and Vijay Singh are tied for third with a 69.62 average.
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