Brett Quigley moved a little bit closer on Saturday to padding his professional win column. That’s significant for the 50-year-old who won his first PGA Tour Champions title earlier this year in just his second start on the senior tour. Quigley had five runner-up finishes in 408 starts on the PGA Tour but never was a champion.
Quigley backed up an opening 64 at Tucson National’s Catalina Course with a second-round 68 and now leads by two shots at the Cologuard Classic.
Quigley nearly went bogey-free for a second day. He didn’t have a blemish on his card in the first round, but his sole bogey of the second round came at the par-4 11th.
“To back up yesterday’s round with a pretty good round today, 5 under,” Quigley said. “Hard to keep track of par out here with 73 being par. I think it was 5 under. A little off the back nine, but managed to shoot under par, so certainly happy overall.”
Quigley leads Fred Couples by two shots after Couples backed up an opening 68 with 66. Miguel Angel Jimenez and Rod Pampling are tied for third at 11 under.
John Daly dropped seven spots on the leaderboard with his Saturday 71 and now is in a share of 10th at 8 under.
Couples, 60, calls Quigley “the kid.” Asked what he thinks of that, Quigley said he was not unhappy to have the nickname.
“Certainly I feel like a newbie again, definitely a neophyte out here. It’s against all the guys I grew up playing with and a lot of guys I grew up watching, so it’s fun.”
Quigley and Couples, along with Jimenez, will be paired together in Sunday’s final group.
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