Hebert had eight birdies and a bogey.
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But he finished the round strongly with birdies at 14 and 17 to finish on four-under. He also is first on the PGA TOUR in greens in regulation percentage (73.61) and first in scrambling from the rough (70.37).
Na hit another 311-yard drive on the 16th, followed up with a 183-yard iron shot to six feet and made another putt.
The Swede leads Paul Casey by two and Zach Johnson and Rory McIlroy by three each. And I really feel like the standard of golf has sort of went up another level this year. “Accuracy is the key around here”.
Rory McIlroy believes Jordan Spieth would pip Jason Day in a contest to decide which of the pair has been the best player on the PGA Tour this season.
“Somewhere between nine and 12-under at this tournament nearly always has you in the mix and I have three rounds left to make my moves so I’m still confident”, Day said. “This is a round that earlier in the playoffs was a 4-over round”.
I expected to get a little bit (of criticism), but not the response that I got from practically everyone, Day recalled, another championship trophy poised within arms reach. Playing the course appears to be the easy part.
“I think that the “big” number – whatever it is – changes, I’ve seen it change week-to-week out here”, Spieth said. There were 29 players at the start of Thursday but South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen withdrew during the first round with a hamstring injury.
However Spieth dropped back to third having failed to make the cut at The Barclays and the Deutsche Bank Championship, before finishing tied for 13th at the BMW Championships.
Two years ago, Henrik Stenson had a chance to win the European Tour’s Race To Dubai – the poor man’s FedEx Cup to an American’s viewpoint – even though he hadn’t won a single tournament on that tour.
Stenson, the 2013 FedEx Cup champion, could also become the second player to win the FedEx Cup without winning an event during the regular season.
The PGA Tour will be the first to admit that, although it’s FedEx Cup postseason is in its ninth year of existence, its point format could still use some tweaking. “It’s definitely a ball-striking golf course”.
After his opening round of five-under to put himself in second place, it is worth adding Casey to the mix. “We worked together for three years now and I would say I’m in as good shape as I’ve ever been”. “I had a lot of treatment since then and worked on the posture, tried to loosen up that back”.
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Youngster Daniel Berger was as close as Day had to a challenger as he blitzed the back nine at Conway Farms to finish in second. “That’s when you start losing confidence and you start hurting other things”, he said.
