Bjorn and Lowry lead way at Wentworth
It's tight at the top after day two of the PGA Championship at Wentworth, England, with overnight pace-setter Thomas Bjorn tied for the lead at 10-under-par with Ireland's Shane Lowry.
The Dane scored eight
birdies and an eagle on Thursday to card a course record 62 but a
level-par round on a soggy Friday allowed Lowry to draw level atop the
leaderboard.
It could have been worse
for Bjorn, who dropped two shots on the front nine as the rain lashed
down before recovering with two birdies on 15 and 18.
"Those were tough
conditions for everybody out there today," the 43 year old Dane told
European Tour website upon returning to the clubhouse. "Especially on
the front nine it was extremely difficult to get into a rhythm.
"We played those first
four holes in I don't know how long, and we had a couple of rulings in
front of us. It was just impossible to find a good rhythm and Retief
(Goosen) left us with a back injury after five holes, so we got caught
in a two-ball.
"It just seems like all
day we were waiting and waiting for a long time on a lot of these shots.
It was a tough ask today so I was pretty pleased with the way I
finished the round."
World number 142 Lowry took advantage of Bjorn's difficulties with a 2-under-par round of 70 to draw level with the Dane.
"I was good out there today," Lowry told reporters upon completing his round, "I was mentally there and really enjoyed it."
"It was tough for the front nine with the rain and stuff but it was a nice back nine and I managed to take advantage of it."
The lowest round of the
day was a five-under-par carded by Luke Donald, moving the Englishman
into a tie for third place with Spain's Rafa Cabrera-Bello.
The Englishman told
reporters he planned to treat himself to a Friday night curry to
celebrate drawing himself back into contention.
Another man pleased with his second round showing after a tough week was world No. 10, Rory McIlroy.
The Northern Irishman
split from his fiance, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, earlier in the
week, but registered a one-under par round after recovering from an
awful 38-shot (three-over-par) front nine to join Sweden's Henrik
Stenson and Paraguay's Fabrizio Zanotti in a tie for fifth at
five-under-par.
Stenson could replace
Adam Scott atop the world rankings this weekend this if he scores a
significantly higher finish at Wentworth than Scott does at the Crowne
Plaza Invitational at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth Texas.
Scott battled back from a poor opening round and nervy front nine on day two to make the Colonial cut at one-under-par.
The Australian is six shots behind leader Brice Garnett, however, who leads the way on seven-under-par.
Chris Stroud and Rober
Streb are a shot behind Garnett in a tie for second going into the
weekend while Bo van Pelt, Dustin Johnson, Aaron Baddeley, Chad
Campbell, Jimmy Walker, Tim Clark and Brian Davis are all tied for
fourth on five-under-par.
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