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Abraham Ancer and Cameron Smith turned in the rounds of the day on Friday. Posting the two best Strokes Gained: Putting figures, the Presidents Cup teammates each recorded a score of 8-under 62 in the second round. While Ancer technically led the field in SG: Putting, it was the Australian who tied a PGA Tour record with his flat stick.
Needing only 18 putts to get around TPC Southwind, Smith matched a long-standing PGA Tour record for the least number of putts needed in a single round. After back-to-back chip-ins on his front-nine, Smith gave himself some wiggle room down the stretch.
At times, it seemed as if the man rocking the mullet knew exactly what he was doing en route to the record. Narrowly missing greens and having approach shots rest perfectly on the fringe, Smith was more than pleased with his day on and around-the-greens.
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However, the man that the international duo and the rest of the field will be looking to chase down over the weekend is still Harris English. The first-round leader maintained his two-stroke lead thanks to yet another solid round, this time posting a 5-under 65.
Starting his day on the back-nine, English turned in 3-under 32. A bogey on the par-4 2nd left English at 10-under for the tournament as he headed to the gettable par-5 3rd. English would take advantage of the accessible hole location as he hit his approach shot inside of five feet and converted the eagle opportunity. He wasn’t the only one to make an eagle on the 3rd hole today as there was a total of seven in Round 2, most noticeably by Smith, English, and the bash brothers of Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.
Listed at +300 at PointsBet Sportsbook, English remains the favorite to capture his second title at TPC Southwind. When he broke through earlier this year in Kapalua, English successfully converted the 36-hole lead and will look to do so once again.
Updated Odds to Win (Via PointsBet):
+300: Harris English
+650: Abraham Ancer, Cameron Smith
+700: Scottie Scheffler
+900: Louis Oosthuizen
+1000: Bryson DeChambeau
+1400: Sam Burns
+1600: Ian Poulter
+2800: Daniel Berger
+3500: Dustin Johnson, Will Zalatoris
+4000: Justin Thomas
+7000: Paul Casey
+8000: Carlos Ortiz, Tony Finau
+10000: Jim Herman
Round 3 Plays:
Ryan Palmer (+12500 to win):
With the way that English is going, I would be rather surprised if he doesn’t convert the 36-hole lead into a victory. Not only has his play been nearly flawless, but he’s proven to be a capable leader as our colleague, Josh Culp, pointed out on Twitter. Having possessed the lead at the halfway mark five times in his career, English has been able to convert three of those occurrences into victories.
As I mentioned, Ancer and Smith led the field in putting on Friday, so I expect at least one of them to have a sluggish Saturday. That leaves the likes of Ian Poulter, Scottie Scheffler, and Louis Oosthuizen to potentially play spoiler, yet I don’t have enough faith in any of them, especially at such short numbers.
Instead, we’ll go further down the odds board, as we are known to do come Friday afternoon. While Daniel Berger provides the most intrigue, it’ll be Ryan Palmer that we look to as he almost came through for us in Scotland last month. Truth be told, six-under may be pushing the limits to the question of “How far back is too far back?”
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Yet Palmer’s play on Friday warrants consideration heading into the weekend. Sitting seven-strokes behind English, Palmer is only five-strokes back of second place. If English was to falter, he’s right there chomping at the bit.
After opening with a round of even-par on Thursday, the Texan fired a six-under 64 on Friday. Posting +1.39 SG: Off-the-Tee, 2.70 SG: Approach, and 0.29 SG: Around-the-Green, he was exceptional tee-to-green, ranking first in the field. However, as it is known to do, the putter was uncooperative, as he was slightly negative on the greens.
We’ve seen in the past that victors at TPC Southwind don’t necessarily need to be stellar putters. Palmer doesn’t have that luxury sitting so far back, but he has shown the ability to find form on the greens over the weekend. Ranking 14th on the PGA Tour in Round 3 scoring average, I expect Palmer to put together a strong round tomorrow and give English a run for his money heading into Sunday.
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