Two players share clubhouse lead at Miccosukee Championship
MIAMI –Golfers don’t have the luxury of calling for a critical timeout, but Josh Broadawaygot one when he needed it in Friday’s weather-delayed, second round of the Miccosukee Championship. Broadaway was on the 12th fairway when an afternoon storm popped up and forced officials to suspend play because of threatening conditions. The 31-year old Georgian birdied three of his first four holes after play resumed following a 67-minute delay and wound up grabbing a share of the 36-hole clubhouse lead.Broadaway stumbled with a three-putt bogey on the final hole, settling for a 3-under 68 and a spot at the top of the leaderboard with Korean-born, Australian Won Joon Lee, who tallied his second straight 67 for an 8-under 134 total.
Friday’s delay kept 15 players in the field from finishing the second round at the Miccosukee Golf & Country Club. Monday qualifier Justin Smith, a 27-year old from Minnesota, birdied his final hole as the horn sounded to suspend play at 7:01 p.m. and moved to 9-under par with two holes to go.
Boise rookie Troy Merritt, a winner at the Mexico Open last month, heads a list of five players in the clubhouse at 7-under par. Merritt is joined by Chad Collins, South African Tjaart van der Walt, Brian Smock and Kyle Reifers at 135.
Bradley Iles of New Zealand is also 7-under through 16 holes.
“The delay was good for me. I wasn’t hitting it great, nothing special,” said Broadaway, who was 1-under for the day and spinning his wheels when the lightning threat forced everyone off the course at 3:20 p.m. “I think the delay just calmed me down a little. I was spraying my driver and I got to hit a few balls on the range and figure out why I was hitting it a little off.”
Broadaway promptly canned a couple of short birdie putts at Nos. 12 and 13 and then rolled in a 60-footer for birdie at the 477-yard, par-4, 15th, the fifth-toughest hole on the Nationwide Tour last year.
“That’s stealing right there,” said Broadaway. “I was right on Chad’s (Ginn) line and showed me a perfect line. That was blind luck. I poured it right in the middle.”
Broadaway finds himself right in the middle of the hunt in the Tour’s last full-field event. Next week’s Tour Championship at Daniel Island, S.C., will take the top-60 money winners. Broadaway has made only six of 23 cuts this year and is No. 88 on the money list.
“I played well here last year (T3) so I know I can play good at this course,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of confidence. It’s hard to say that when you’ve missed 10 out of the last 11 cuts but I do. I’ve been playing well, I just haven’t been scoring. I got a few breaks the first two days and made some putts, maybe it’s my week, who knows.”
It could be a week for the big-hitting Lee, who ranks No. 1 in average driving distance this year (314.2 yards) but is No. 141 in driving accuracy, barely hitting half of the fairways (52.90%).
“It’s the first time I’ve really driven the ball with confidence in the last six months,” said Lee, who is No. 73 on the money list and needs a good finish to qualify for next week. “I switched back to my old driver that I used early in the year last year and I feel more confident with my ball flight. It’s still not 100%, but it’s a lot better than it was the last few months.”
Lee didn’t do anything fancy in his round Friday morning, save for a hole-out from a greenside bunker for eagle at the par-5, 10th.
“I’m hitting the ball solid and I haven’t made too many big errors, which is key around a long golf course like this,” he said. “It’s just a confidence thing.”
Second-round notebook:
* Second-round play was suspended at 3:10 p.m. due to threatening conditions in the area. Play resumed at 4:17 p.m. for a total delay of 1:07.
* Second-round play was suspended due to darkness at 7:01 p.m. Play will resume at 7:45 a.m. Saturday. The field will be cut to the low-60 players and ties. The current projected cut has 64 players at 2-under par. Of the 15 players left to finish round two, seven are currently inside the projected cut line.
* The third round will begin at approximately 9:00 a.m. with play in threesomes off the 1st and 10th tees.
* Brennan Webb (shoulder), Keoke Cotner (illness) and Omar Uresit (back) all withdrew during the second round.
* Doug LaBelle II and Paul Gow both withdrew during the suspension of play.
* Derek Fathauer was disqualified for not showing up for his afternoon tee time.
* First-round leader Andrew Buckle started bogey/double-bogey today. He shot a 2-over 73 and is at 5-under 137.
* Leading money-winner Michael Sim will make the cut after shooting back-to-back rounds of 70. This is Sim’s first start on Tour since the Christmas In October Classic in August, when he earned his third win of the season.
* Esteban Toledo’s 6-under 65 was the low round of the day. Toledo is 6-under for his opening 36 holes.
* Tom Gillis, No. 5 on the money list, posted rounds of 76-73—149 (+7) and will miss the cut for the second straight week. Gillis was a perfect 12-for-12 this year before missing the cut at the Soboba Classic two weeks ago. Gillis is 15-over par in his last four rounds, all of which have been above-par scores. He’d had only five rounds above-par in his previous 48 rounds this year.
* Jeff Gove, No. 15 on the money list, will also miss the cut this week. Gove has not made it to the weekend in two of his last three starts. Previously, he ran off a string of 16 consecutive cuts made before slipping at the WNB Golf Classic a few weeks ago.
* Manuel Villegas, 24-year old younger brother of Camillo Villegas, will miss the cut this week after shooting scores of 69-76—145 (+3).
* Blake Adams, No. 2 on the money list, will miss the cut for the third time in his last four starts. Adams had rounds of 74-70. Adams had made the cut in 14 of his first 16 starts this year.
* Rookie Jonas Blixt stumbled late in his round and will miss the cut. Blixt, No. 35 on the money list, was 3-under for the day and 2-under for the Tournament with two holes to go when he finished double bogey-bogey. Blixt wound up at even-par, but not good enough to reach the weekend rounds.
* Kevin Johnson, No. 11 on the money list, 71-69—140 (-2) will make the cut this week. Johnson had missed the cut in his last four starts and 10 of his last 12.
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