PGA Championship victor Jason Day kept alive his hopes to be No. 1 for the first time with another 68 that left him in a tie for 10th place, six shots behind.
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NORTON, Mass. – There are two differing viewpoints for analyzing Jordan Spieth’s second consecutive missed cut, the only time in his young career he’s suffered such a setback.
“It is nearly like a bad dream”. He was 8 under for his round through 14 holes and had played bogey-free to that point. Nerd alertWhen Rickie Fowler, who matched his Friday score with another 67, was asked about his recent comment about people who think golf is a dorky sport, he said that he, Day and Spieth may be changing those opinions. “Just not everything is exact and fine tuned like it has been this whole year”. I’ll probably go swimming at the hotel and take it easy.
“I need to walk with some cockiness in my step these next two tournaments”, he said.
World number one Rory McIlroy made the cut with only a shot to spare after a 74 left him two over.
At the 2015 Deutsche Bank Championship, held at the Tournament Players Club located midway between Providence (Rhode Island) and Boston (Massachusetts), the tournament’s opening ceremonies were greeted with wonderful weather reports for a near-perfect Labor Day holiday weekend in the northeast. The man who seemed to play golf with a machine-like consistency found that the wheels were falling off and he had a second successive missed cut on Saturday.
The Labor Day finish offers another cutoff – getting into the top 70 to advance to the third playoff event north of Chicago in two weeks. He slammed his bag and looked disgusted over most of his shots. But upstairs, we can’t read that. Anytime you are in the lead you put a lot of pressure on yourself.
Former Deutsche Bank victor McIlroy also struggled in his second round.
McIlroy, seeking a strong finish to a season disrupted by a serious ankle injury in July, was irked with himself after finishing with back-to-back bogeys at the eighth and ninth.
Not that we should simply write off Spieth’s missed cuts as some non-sequitor.
He was in an even better frame of mind yesterday than he was after his 6-under start.
Scotland’s Russell Knox (65) scored seven birdies in a blistering round, leaving him tied for seventh with Sean O’Hair (67) and Henrik Stenson (68).
And Slattery extended his advantage to two strokes when he chipped in for another birdie at the 17th. He said: “It has been a hard year”.
“Normally my mental game is a strength of mine”, he explained.
“To chip one in at such an important time meant so much and it shows that practice pays off eventually”.
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“It’s one of those courses that sets up well, the visuals are good, and I tend to make a few more putts than average for me on these greens”.
