Players Championship field bracing for tough weekend conditions with intimating winds
PONTE VEDRA, Fla.— The talk of the first two rounds of the Players Championship this week has been about how gentle the conditions were at the usually diabolical Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.As second-round play ended Friday evening, there were a lot of sub-par numbers on the scoreboard.Min Woo Lee and Akshay Bhatia share the lead at the halfway mark at 11-under par after both shot 6-under-par 66s on Friday.J.J.
Spaun, after a second-round 68, is one shot back at 10-under par.Then come two multiple major championship winners, Rory McIlroy, ranked No.
2 in the world, and Collin Morikawa, ranked No.4, and Alex Smalley, all at 9-under par.Will Zalatoris and Lucas Glover are 8-under, followed by Tommy Fleetwood and Jake Knapp at 7-under par.While the getting was good for the first two days and low scores very attainable with the greens soft and the wind down, that all figures to change on the weekend with gusty winds in the forecast.The winds are forecast for Saturday and Sunday to be blowing 15-25 miles per hour with higher gusts likely.
And the players are bracing for it.“It will be tough,” Lee said.“We got the text message [Friday] from the Tour saying that they’re going to adjust the course to [the wind].
It’s a tough course even without wind, and it’s intimidating.“There will be holes where obviously it will be downwind and some that are into, so there’s going to be holes that could be easier, but holes that could be a lot harder.”Said world No.1 Scottie Scheffler, who’s 5-under par and in contention: “It’s going to be pretty challenging this weekend.
The golf course was definitely gettable the first two days.”That gravy train ended after Friday’s round.“Clearly, with the wind it’s a completely different test,” Fleetwood said.“It makes controlling your ball off the tee even more important than it normally is and just giving yourself the chance to control your golf ball and trying to be kind of relentless and patient out...