Round 2 Notes – Mercedes-Benz Championship
Second-Round Notes – Friday, January 4, 2008Weather: Partly cloudy skies with a high temperature of 76 degrees and occasional showers. Winds NE at 20-30 mph.
Canada’s Mike Weir carded a second-round 67 in the PGA TOUR’s Mercedes-Benz Championship on Friday and will take a one-shot lead over fellow Canadian Stephen Ames and 2007 John Deere Classic champion Jonathan Byrd into Saturday’s third round.
All seven winners from the PGA TOUR’s Fall Series in 2007 are in the field this week at the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Of those seven, four find themselves in the top-10 through 36 holes: Mike Weir, Stephen Ames, Justin Leonard, and Daniel Chopra.
This marks the sixth time in Mike Weir’s PGA TOUR career in which he has been a leader/co-leader through 36 holes of a TOUR event:
Year Event Scores Finish
2007 Deutsche Bank Champ. 65-68-74-73—280 T30
2006 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am 63-67-69-78—277 T3
2004 Bell Canadian Open 68-65-70-72—275 2nd
2004 Nissan Open 66-64-66-71—267 Won
2003 Masters Tournament 70-68-75-68—281 Won
Mike Weir made the first eagle of the 2008 FedExCup season on the par-5 ninth during Friday’s second round.
Mark Calcavecchia’s second-round 66 (75-66—141) keeps him on pace with his history at the Mercedes-Benz Championship as the 2007 PODS Championship winner has carded five top-10 finishes in 10 career starts at this event.
The only player in tournament history to open with a round of 75 and go on to win was Johnny Miller in 1974 (75-69-67-69—280). Ironic as it may seem, Calcavecchia had the highest first-round score by a winner on the PGA TOUR in 2007 when he opened with a 75 en route to claiming the title at the PODS Championship.
In Thursday’s opening round, the story was the number of first-time participants who found themselves atop the leaderboard. Friday turned out to be a different story as four major championship winners used low rounds to vault into the top 10: Mike Weir (67), Mark Calcavecchia (66), Justin Leonard (68), and Angel Cabrera (71).
What a difference 24 hours can make! The Plantation Course at Kapalua yielded birdies galore on Friday with a scoring average of 70.645. The Plantation Course had not averaged under 71 for a single round since round three in 2005. While only 10 players managed to break par in Thursday’s opening round, an astounding 24 players broke par on Friday.
Bogey-free rounds: Mike Weir (67), Chad Campbell (68), and Scott Verplank (70).
Scoring Averages:
Front 9 Back 9 Total
Thursday 35.792 36.968 73.645
Friday 34.645 36.000 70.645
The most difficult hole on Friday was the par-3 11th, which played to an average of 3.258. This is the second day in a row in which a par-3 has played as the most difficult hole on the course. The par-3 eighth played to an average of 3.516 on Thursday.
Calcavecchia was the only player in the field who managed to hit 18 Greens in Regulation on Friday; however, Greens in Regulation was not an accurate barometer for success in 2007 as only four players in the field this week finished 2007 in the top 50 in that category: Nick Watney, Jim Furyk, Hunter Mahan, and Vijay Singh.
After zero players managed to hit every fairway on Thursday, Charley Hoffman, Zach Johnson, and Scott Verplank all did so on Friday.
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