Toms leads - withdrawals lead discussion
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2011 The Players Championship | Round Two | 14 May 2011
David Toms leads the Players Championship but while those contending for the event are gaining their share of attention so too are three high profile golfers who have been forced to withdraw.
Tiger Woods lasted just nine holes of round one before knee, Achilles tendon and calf problems forced him to withdraw after making the turn on Thursday in 42.
Geoff Ogilvy withdrew from last week’s Wells Fargo Championship dues to a shoulder injury and after struggling through the opening 27 holes of this week’s event he today withdrew after nine holes.
Tim Clark arrived at the TPC Sawgrass as the defending champion but he had a cloud over his fitness due to an elbow injury he had been suffering since January. It appeared ok during round one but overnight and during his round today eventually forcing his withdrawal.
With the US Open now only five weeks away all three have a cloud over their participation in that event and their preparation for it.
Toms has not won since the Sony Open in 2006 but he has continued to play well in the interim compiling a series of runner-up finishes. This is however not a golf course that Toms has played well previously. It took him seven starts to make his first cut around the TPC at Sawgrass and in eighteen appearances he has recorded just one top ten. This is therefore a surprising but pleasing development for the 44 year old.
“My past results here haven’t been all that great, but I’ve played a lot of good rounds in the last month or so,” said Toms after his round. “This is the third week of a four-week stretch that I have, so I wanted to get the game going, which, I mean, you always want to do that. But I just felt like that third week is a good time to really get it going, and that’s what’s happened so far.
“I’ve played really, really solid. I haven’t done anything necessarily great, I’ve just been very solid in every part of the game.”
Toms played in the morning field on day two and added a second round of 68 to his opening 66 and at ten under leads by one shot over Nick Watney for whom hardly a PGA Tour event now goes by without being in the mix.
Watney had led after an opening round of 64 which had included a nine birdies and an eagle but while today there was nowhere near the brilliance of day one it was a solid enough back up. Like Toms, Watney’s record in this event is not great but he has now created a great chance to add this title to the World Golf Championship event he won earlier in the year in southern Florida.
Graeme McDowell, Steve Stricker, last week’s winner Lucas Glover and one of the pre tournament favourites Luke Donald are next at 8 under and just two behind the leader.
Donald’s amazing consistency in 2011 continued today with a round of 67 and with Lee Westwood not playing this week and Martin Kaymer three shots behind the door is open for the Englishman to grab the game’s number one mantle.
Of the Australians Aaron Baddeley is well placed in 7th position and just three from the lead. Baddeley is currently in 56th position in the world ranking and so perhaps a top five finish here might be good enough to move him inside the top 50 and open up the possibility of a US Open start which he does not have at present.
Greg Chalmers is in 11th position at 6 under while Jason Day continued his recent good form to be in 17th position at 5 under.
Robert Allenby slipped to 47th after a good start yesterday while Matt Jones was the only other Australian to make the cut and is in 60th position.
The disappointment from an Australian perspective was the performance of Adam Scott who came in to the event as one of the favourites after his recent effort at Augusta National but missed the cut.
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