BOCA RATON – Darren Clarke got off to a fast start for the second consecutive day on Saturday, and this time he didn’t let up.
Clarke, 52, who is seeking his first PGA Tour Champions victory, shot a bogey-free 10-under-par 62 Saturday for a 13-under 131 total.
He was tied for the lead of the TimberTech Championship with Robert Karlsson, 51, who followed his opening 65 with a six-birdie 66, during an intermittently wet and windy second round at The Old Course at Broken Sound.
They were one shot ahead of Jim Furyk, who had shared the first-round lead with John Daly at 64. Furyk was alone in third place after a 68 Saturday and a 132 total. Daly shot a 1-over 73 with four bogeys and three birdies to fall into a tie for 20th.
Cameron Beckman, 50, who is playing in only his fifth Champions Tour event, and Kent Jones, 53, both shot 66 Saturday and were tied for fourth along with hometown favorite and defending champion Bernhard Langer and Scott Parel, who both shot 68. Gene Sauers and Rod Pampling both shot 65 to move up 19 spots into a tie for eighth.
Sunday’s final round begins at 9:35 a.m. Clarke, Karlsson and Furyk tee off in the last threesome at 11:45 a.m.
Clarke, who won the 2011 Open Championship, had four birdies on the front nine Friday, but he had two bogeys and a birdie coming home to finish at 3-under 69, which put him in a 19-way tie for 27th in the 81-player field.
A native of Northern Ireland who now lives at The Winding Club at Abaco Bay in the Bahamas, Clarke birdied the first hole Saturday morning and added four more birdies on to finish the front 5-under 31. He then birdied the first two holes on the back to give him three consecutive birdies and five in a six-hole stretch.
A birdie at No. 13 put him at 8 under for the day. After four pars in a row, he concluded his round in style on the 507-yard par-5 18th. Clarke hit his second shot, an 8-iron from 163 yards, three feet from the hole, then rolled in the eagle putt. Approach shots like that were the key to his round.
“I holed one 30-footer on No. 9 and one 12-footer on No. 10 … about everything else was about three, four feet,” said Clarke, who is in his third season on the Champions Tour. “The greens are receptive, obviously, and if you play it well, you give yourself opportunities. Today I read the greens better than I have for quite some time. But again, it was much easier to hole putts – it goes without saying – if you hit it closer.”
Clarke was on such a good roll, not even a mental mistake could stop his momentum.
“The last few weeks with the weather conditions, we’ve been ball in hand, marking it and placing it,” said Clarke, adding that on the first tee the starter told his threesome that no placing was allowed Saturday. “First hole, fine. Second hole, down the middle of the fairway, marked it, picked it up. Oops. One-shot penalty straightaway. Anyway, hit it over the back of the green, chipped it in for par.
“A 61 would’ve been nice, but a 62 is just fine with me.”
Karlsson, a native of Sweden, has six top-10 finishes in 11 events in his first season on the PGA Tour Champions. He had four birdies on the front nine, birdied the 14th hole to pull within a shot of Clarke, and two-putted the 18th for birdie for the tie.
Playing aggressively, but smart, has been a key to his success this year, which includes a tie for second, and three straight top-10s coming into this tournament.
“I’ve had too many tournaments where I made too many mistakes early on, otherwise I probably would have done a bit better because a lot of my good tournaments have come from really great last holes, or last few holes anyway, in the last round,” said Karlsson, who had 11 European Tour wins. “When you play on the Champions Tour, it’s just very, very low scoring all the time and very bunched up. I’m trying not to get too caught up in it, play my own game and that’s going to be the plan tomorrow as well.
“I’m ecstatic with my first year on the tour. I didn’t play well at the end on the European Tour and coming out here and being up in the top of the leaderboard again, see my name on the leaderboards, being in contention, it’s great fun again to be there.”