Donald and Furyk claim lead in Atlanta
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2010 PGA Tour Championship | Round Two | 25 Sep 2010
The leading three players at the completion of 36 holes at the Tour Championship in Atlanta have stolen a break of the remaining 27 players in the final to the FedEx Cup Playoffs with Jim Furyk and Luke Donald narrow leaders over Geoff Ogilvy.
There is a further three shots back to the 4th placed K.J. Choi with another shot back to Paul Casey, Kevin Na and Retief Goosen.
Donald is delighted with the manner in which he is playing and was quick to dispel any thoughts of tiredness given the amount of golf he has played of late.
“It’s certainly a busy run. There are a lot of very good tournaments now where we get to play. It’s hard to say no to some of them. But physically actually I feel like I’m in as good a shape as I’ve been, and I think that’s really helped me in terms of playing the number of events like we have. Tiredness really isn’t a factor.”
Furyk was asked after his round just how the thought of a possible US$10 million (plus a tournament winner’s cheque of US$1.35 million) is playing on his mind. "Right now I’m worried about – I mean, it’s there," said Furyk.
“It’s a bunch of money, and obviously this being an early – we’re only in our fifth year, is that right, fourth year? It just seems like five, it’s gone so fast. It’s only the fourth year. There isn’t a lot of history. You can’t date back to 1937. Dangling a big carrot at the end obviously has gotten everyone’s attention because that’s what everyone is talking about.”
“The only thing I can really control is to go out and play good on the weekend, try to win the golf tournament, and at that point there’s nothing else I can do about it.”
Ogilvy has improved to 9th in the FedEx Cup race and after his round drew comparisons to yesterday’s first round.
“Yeah, probably wasn’t quite as stress free today as it was yesterday. It was a little more up-and-down. I hit a few loose tee shots today, but I hit a lot of really good shots and putting pretty well at the moment, so it all added up to 3-under.
“I mean, it’s obviously playing very difficult, but when you play with a guy who shoots 66 yesterday or 67 yesterday and the guy I played with today has 66, it doesn’t seem as hard when you’re playing with guys who are playing well, as well.”
“I can definitely tell a lot of guys are struggling. If you hit it in the rough, it’s really hard to hit it on the green, and the greens are tough if you’re putting from above the hole. I’m pretty content with the way I’ve played for the first two days.”
The share of the halfway lead has swept Donald to the top of the FedEx Cup points race ahead of Furyk with the leader heading into this week, Matt Kuchar slipping to third overall after what has been a slow start to this week’s event for him.
Kuchar is in 15th position at 2 over while Dustin Johnson, who was in second position on the points table prior to this week’s event, has all but eliminated his chances of taking the US$10 million FedEx Cup winner’s cheque. Johnson is at 4 over and 12 shots behind the lead.
Of the Australians other than Ogilvy, Jason Day has kept his hopes alive with a second consecutive round of 69 to be at 2 under and in 8th position. Robert Allenby is at 1 over in 13th position and Adam Scott has disappointed with rounds of 74 and 71 to be in 25th position in the 30 man field.
