Choi stays ahead at Sony Open
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2008 Sony Open in Hawaii | Round Two | 12 Jan 2008
K.J. Choi extended his opening round lead at the Sony Open in Hawaii and at the completion of 36 holes finds himself with a two shot lead over, Kevin Na.
Choi played early in the day and with four birdies in his last five holes had established a lead that would never be seriously threatened throughout the day.
Choi’s form turnaround, after what had been an ordinary week on Maui last week, continued today with the Korean putting much of that improvement down to improved form on the greens.
“Yeah, in the past when I putted, I sort of had a tendency to not place a specific emphasis on something, but this week, recently, I’ve learned and trained myself to set up a line, a box, so to speak, just an imaginary box, and that’s helped me a lot.”
Na moved within two shots of Choi’s lead with five holes to play but bogeyed his 15th hole before a birdie at the last saw him as the leader’s closest challenger as the event heads into the weekend.
The 24-year-old is now into his fifth season on the PGA Tour and although he has yet to win, he has been runner up twice. He has, however, won on the Nationwide and Asian Tours and is generally considered a player capable of matching the success of fellow countryman, Choi.
Steve Marino is in third place at eight under. Like Choi, Marino also played early and made a fast start with four birdies in his first eight holes but finished with 67. A rookie on the PGA Tour in 2007, he did well earning more than US$1 million. He had gained his PGA Tour status via the Tour School but has played on the Nationwide Tour and won on the Gateway Tour.
The Australasian challenge, which appeared at the start of the week to be a strong one, proved to be less so with only two of the ten making the cut. New South Welshman, Matt Jones, playing in just his second PGA Tour event, joins New Zealander Tim Wilkinson for the weekend and at three under they have made encouraging starts to their PGA Tour careers.
Robert Allenby, Nathan Green and John Senden, who finished at one over, missed the actual cut by one although under a new rule introduced by the PGA this year only those at one under will get to play the weekend.
Those at even par will earn cheques but in a move designed to avoid oversized weekend fields, the field for this weekend has been restricted to the top 69. It has been agreed that where the number of those making the actual cut is larger than 78 players then the number for those able to play the final 36 holes will be reduced to a figure nearest 70.
Aaron Baddeley, Peter Lonard, Jason Day, Nick Flanagan and David Lutterus all finished outside the cut line. Day finished birdie, eagle but still finished three shots outside the cutline.
