PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – The fog was so thick surrounding Spyglass Hill’s ninth hole Friday that Jordan Spieth could barely see the flag and the outline of the greenside bunker.
He still stuck his 8-iron approach close for one final birdie, a 7-under 65 and a share of the lead heading into the weekend at the weather-delayed AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
Spieth is at 10-under 133, tied with Derek Fathauer, who still has to play Pebble Beach’s difficult ninth hole when second-round play resumes at 7:30 a.m. local time Saturday.
It’s been an encouraging start for Spieth, who opened with 69 at wind-blown Monterey Peninsula on Thursday. Now he has two rounds lined up at rain-softened Pebble, which will be gettable this weekend with light winds and – believe it or not – sunshine in the forecast.
“It’s out there, you can throw darts,” Spieth said. “So you’ve just got to keep the pedal to the metal out there.”
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Spieth rolled in eight birdies Friday at Spyglass, taking advantage of what he said were the “purest” greens in the AT&T course rotation.
“I’m putting a little better than I did in my last three tournaments and that’s why we’re toward the top of the board,” Spieth said. “Striking it pretty much the same. I would like to continue to do so.”
Earlier this week, Spieth lamented his slow starts to tournaments this year, which have led to him playing catch-up on the weekend. He has still racked up three consecutive top-10s, because in six weekend rounds this year, he has only one score worse than 67.
That’s why he said his 5-foot birdie on the last was so important, because he finished with some momentum.
“For me that was a really nice exclamation point at the end to say, all right, we shot 7 under, we took it to 4 at the turn and we kept the pedal down,” he said. “Now I would like to continue that scoring average from the weekend that we have had.”
