TRUCKEE, Calif. – He was one of the first players on the course and Chez Reavie did not waste time.
Reavie scored 19 points in Friday’s second round and surged into the lead at the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood golf course.
Reavie, 40, from Wichita, Kansas, who played his college golf at Arizona State, has plus-28 points after two rounds. Mark Hubbard and Henrik Norlander are tied for second with plus-25 points.
Reavie had seven birdies and an eagle on No. 6, and no bogeys on Friday.
The eagle, his second of the week, came after he chipped in from just off the green.
He said it was a little colder out, starting so early. Reavie teed off at 7:18 a.m. local time Friday, and his shots were not flying quite as far as they did Thursday when he started later in the day.
“Fortunately we kind of noticed that on the range and adjusted for it, and I was lucky enough to just trust the numbers, the clubs that we picked, and then as it warmed up, it kind of gradually kind of started getting closer to what it was yesterday afternoon,” Reavie said.
He said staying in the fairways and out of the rough is key to doing well at Old Greenwood because the greens are so firm.
Hubbard, 33, had seven birdies and two bogeys on Friday, en route to scoring 12 points.
He played basketball at San Jose State and had a few friends from there up at Old Greenwood to watch him play golf this week.
Hubbard is winless on the PGA Tour. He was third last week in Kentucky in the Barbasol Championship.
Hubbard agreed with Reavie that the early start Friday morning took some adjusting.
“It was tough early, man, with the cold and the elevation. It’s hard to know how far the ball is going, and it seemed like every pin on our front nine, the back nine, was front with water short, so you couldn’t really play with it,” he said. “So it was just tough to get the ball close early. Once it heated up and started going another 10 percent I started making some birdies.”
Norlander, who has been working with a sports psychologist, is in his best position after 36 holes this season.
“First of all, I’m pretty excited to not make travel plans on Friday afternoon. That’s been sort of what I’ve been doing every Friday the last few weeks,” Norlander said. “But yeah, it’s a lot of pressure. I’m going to be nervous, but I believe I’m ready for it. … That’s why I practice, and I’m ready for the challenge.”
Under the Modified Stableford scoring system, players receive eight points for albatross, five for eagle and two for birdie. A point is deducted for bogey and three taken away for double bogey or worse.
Kevin Tway is in fourth with plus-21 points, followed by Nino Bertasio, Maverick McNealy and Martin Trainer, each on the leaderboard with plus-19 points.
The cut was at plus-7 points with 70 players making it to keep playing on the weekend.
Noren was been the first alternate for the British Open this week, but decided to fly to California instead to play in the Barracuda.
When Justin Rose withdrew from the British Open, the final major of the year, that opened a spot that would have gone to Noren. Instead that spot went to Rikuya Hoshino.
Noren played nine holes of a practice round at St. Andrews, before flying to California.
“I didn’t think anybody would withdraw. They actually did, and sad for them, but also I wanted to play this,” Noren said. “I wanted to get some more points. I’ve got three weeks of training after this before the playoffs, and I wanted to play this week, and maybe that mindset made me have a little less patience that I needed this time. Golf is a long career, and I’ve played a lot of British Opens, and I’ll get to play it again.”
Erik van Rooyen, who won the Barracuda Championship last year, also withdrew from the British Open.
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