Bogey-free golf.
Three of the sweetest words a player can hear.
Throw in a birdie or nine and it is golf nirvana. Maybe not the state of perfect happiness but it’s darn close.
Steve Stricker might not be feeling nirvana-ish but he has to be feeling pretty good about himself – as well he should – after a second consecutive bogey-free round that kept him semi-comfortably in front of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship at Firestone Country Club.
Stricker’s 2-under 68 was not as dazzling as his opening 63 but it got the job done. His two-day total of 9-under 131 left him with a 5-shot lead over Englishman Paul Broadhurst (67-69) and a 7-shot bulge over Marco Dawson (69-69) and Ken Duke (67-71) at the halfway point of the $3 million event, one of five majors on the PGA Tour Champions schedule.
He is the only man in the 78-player field without a bogey.
Stricker’s five-stroke cushion matches the largest 36-hole lead in tournament history. J.C. Snead led by five after two rounds in 1992 but closed with rounds of 72-75 and finished tied for second behind Dave Stockton. And, it is the largest lead through 36 holes at a Champions Tour major since Bernhard Langer led by seven midway through the 2014 Senior Open Championship.
“You know, it was a little bit more of a grind today,” said Stricker, who parred the first nine holes before cashing in with the first of his two birdies on the 400-yard 10th. “I didn’t make a bogey, but I made a couple good saves for pars that kept the round going. But, overall, you know, really good, solid round again.”
That the 55-year-old Broadhurst is in contention is stunning. The winner of the 2016 Senior Open Championship revealed Friday that he has been suffering from vertigo for the past two months. The symptoms come and go, he said, after starting with an ear infection a few months ago.
“I’m just hoping my health holds out on me so it’s nice to find a bit a form and put a few good rounds together,” said Broadhurst, from Walsall, England. “It’s been tough. Putting’s so difficult, ball’s moving, you’re moving. I’m not swinging how I would like, balance is still not right through the ball. So I’m getting away with it at the moment, but as long as I stay OK for the weekend, I’ll give it my best shot.”
Broadhurst had four birdies and three bogeys to remain in contention in hopes of making a fourth top-10 this season. He said he fears that Stricker will have to come back to the field rather than the field catching Stricker.
“How impressive is what he’s doing?” Broadhurst asked rhetorically. “It’s not a course where you can shoot 6-under but then he shot 7-under yesterday so he proved that theory wrong. That’s what we’ve come to expect from Stricks. He continues to amaze us with some of the scores he puts on the board.”
Stricker, who will captain the Ryder Cup team in three months, had two close calls to having his bogey-free display disrupted.
On the 460-yard 14th he was able to save par after escaping the left rough and avoiding tree trouble from 116 yards. He had hoped to give himself a makeable putt from 10 to 15 feet, but a masterful 8-iron shot stopped about three feet from the hole.
“I wasn’t sitting too well after two shots and just tried to chop an 8-iron, keep it underneath the tree limbs in front of me and try to gauge it coming out of that rough properly. It was a lucky shot. It was like stealing one.”
Stricker hit 3-wood off the tee on the 395-yard 17th but ended up in the right rough, again with a tree in front of him. His 5-iron shot avoided the tree but bounced into some thick rough just off the back of the green, leaving him with a testy chip. He ran his third about four feet past but made the slightly uphill come-backer to keep his streak intact.
His lone birdies came on the 400-yard 10th when he made a 12-footer and on the famed 625-yard 16th. A 3-iron shot from 220 yards found the back bunker but he blasted out to two feet and made the putt.
“It’s a tough test,” Stricker said of the South Course, which is playing to an approximate length of 7,136 yards for the over-50 group “So, I’m happy to get out of here with another bogey-free round. And, if I can continue to do that I’ll be all right.”
Ernie Els, who finished in a tie for fifth here last year after a strong weekend, turned in the day’s lowest round at 3-under 67 and is one of six players tied for fifth at 1-under 139.
Marco Dawson posted his second 69 and shared third place with Ken Duke, each at 138. Dawson, from Freising, Germany, won the 2015 Senior Open Championship but has not had a top-10 finish on the Tour Champions since September of 2020.