Jerry Kelly alone atop leaderboard at Senior Players Championship
Aided by an ever-changing wind and a laser-like sun that turned the greens into a landing area slightly softer than an airport runway, the South Course at Firestone Country Club has turned ornery.
There were few survivors during the second round of the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship, which resumes Saturday with the field scrambling in the first of what was supposed to have been the third of five majors on the Champions Tour this year.
The Regions Tradition, postponed from early May, is scheduled for Sept. 24-27. The other three majors have been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
One Friday survivor was Jerry Kelly, who was one of six players to shoot par and took a three-shot lead over four others heading into the third round. Kelly, with six PGA Tour Champions wins under his belt, stood at 2-under 138 after adding a 70 to his opening 68.
Another to solve the conditions was slimmed-down Colin Montgomerie, one of four players in the field of 79 to break par with a second-round 69 and a two-day total of 141.
How tough was it?
“It was a challenge,” said Steve Stricker, one of four players in at 1-over 141 after a second-round 73 when he hit just nine greens. “I’m not hitting it all that great and that makes it more of a challenge. And we had a little bit more wind today and it’s a cross wind on all the holes, because it’s coming out of the east. So all these holes run north and south, so every hole’s a cross wind. It made club selection a little bit more challenging.”
Through two days and 159 rounds, only 20 scores have been at or under par.
Montgomerie, whose round included five birdies, two bogeys and a double-bogey on the par-3 12th, said the conditions were what they should be.
“It’s a major championship and it should be more than a challenge,” said Montgomerie, who has lost approximately 40 pounds in the past five months. “It’s one of those courses where you get rewarded for good play and one of those where you get heavily penalized for not.”
Kelly, who finished in a tie for seventh in the recent Ally Challenge in Michigan, agreed.
“You get out of position here, you’re in deep trouble and that’s what it’s like in a major,” said Kelly, whose round had a painful ending when he suffered an elbow injury by hitting a tree root on the famed Monster 16th hole. “It’s definitely harder to get back in position. It seemed weird the way the holes were shaped and the way the wind was blowing. You know, it switched almost 180 degrees a couple times.”
Kelly saved par on the 180-yard 12th by chipping in from the right rough.
“The chip-in was awesome,” he said.
Not awesome was hitting the root from the right rough on the 16th.
“Hitting the root on 16 was not fun,” he said. “I saw a root in front of my ball but I didn’t see the root that my ball was sitting on. It is what it is.”
