Masters contender Collin Morikawa shot a bogey-free five-under second spherical of 66 to hitch a four-way tie on the prime of the leaderboard on the PGA Tour’s $20m USD ($A32m) RBC Heritage event on Friday.
However Masters champion Scottie Scheffler’s 65 moved him to inside three photographs of the lead, establishing an enchanting weekend battle as he hopes to change into the primary man since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win a PGA Tour occasion the week after profitable a significant.
Two-time main winner Morikawa is on 11-under together with first spherical chief J.T. Poston, who shot a 68, Tom Hoge and Austrian Sepp Straka.
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Morikawa started with a birdie on the par-5 fourth, the place his very good chip from the sand left him a easy putt after which an ideal method shot on the ninth supplied him along with his second birdie.
Whereas the Californian wasn’t fairly on prime of his sport, he sank a ten-footer on the eleventh for birdie and adopted that up on the following gap with a 36-foot birdie putt from the perimeter.
One other birdie on the par-4 sixteenth gave him the share of the lead, with Morikawa saying he was pleased with the way in which he had stored his scorecard clear.
“I hit it poorly, however the misses weren’t as unhealthy, and the misses don’t put me in spots that trigger me numerous strokes. That’s what it’s about is form of minimising these errors,” he stated.
After struggling early within the season, Morikawa, who received the PGA Championship in 2020 and the British Open the next 12 months, sat only a stroke behind eventual Masters winner Scottie Scheffler going into Sunday’s last spherical at Augusta.
He completed tied for third after taking pictures a two-over 74 however felt he had refound his sport on the vary final Monday.
“It’s not like we created one thing new within the golf swing. It simply all made sense. We tried to make numerous issues make sense for the previous whereas, however generally issues click on, and it’s clearly clicked as a result of it’s lasted greater than a day,” he stated.
Masters runner-up Ludvig Aberg moved to inside a shot of the lead along with his second spherical of 66, additionally bogey free.
The 24-year-old Swede solely turned skilled in June final 12 months however has swiftly risen to quantity seven on the earth.
The par-four third was his solely birdie earlier than the flip however he led to model with 4 birdies in his final six holes together with the seventeenth and 18th.
“I really feel prefer it examined my persistence a bit of bit greater than it did yesterday. Clearly I got here out a bit of bit hotter yesterday than I did right this moment. However we didn’t attempt to drive something. We stayed very disciplined and ended up ending birdie-birdie, which was form of a bonus on these two holes, however clearly very happy with the way in which we’ve been taking part in,” he stated.
Ominously for the leaders although, world primary Scheffler heads into the weekend simply three strokes off the lead in what’s a tightly packed leaderboard.
Scheffler adopted up his opening spherical 69 with a 65 and was happy to have put himself in rivalry.
“It was a superb day. I felt like I may have shot loads decrease. Felt like I had some putts that had been going up and not less than had an opportunity of entering into and didn’t. However aside from that, yeah, performed actually good golf. Pleased with right this moment’s effort,” he stated.
World quantity two Rory McIlroy was a stroke behind Scheffler after his 68.