'Jhonny' Vegas beats the odds to lead the' Hope' with Boo..

In his home country of  Venezuela golf is viewed  by President Hugo Chavez as a pastime of the rich, and he is constantly threatening to take over the land they occupy to build homes..

Maybe if Jhonattan Vegas keeps up his fine play and wins the Hope, he will be able to temper his President's viewpoint,.. no telling what a little positive publicity not to mention a financial contribution can do to win over a politician !!!

I noticed the wind had got up a bit in otherwise perfect scoring conditions ( what else do you ever see at the Hope) and Vegas shot a 5-under 67 on the Nicklaus private course to go with his opening 64 -13 131 


Weekley had a 66 to match Vegas at -13. Charles Howell III (66) and Chris Couch (65) were a stroke back at -12

Mike Weir continues to struggle in a tournament he usually excels at. He shot at nasty +3 75 which included 3 double bogey's, he leads the tournament in that category with 4 already. He is all over the place with his driver T119 in accuracy and T117 in GIR.  He is T121st near the bottom of the field and I can already hear the question " is Weirsy done ?"

Better news for Stephen Ames who moved up 24 spots to a T30 with a -4 68  -7 total, 6 shots off the lead. He had 6 birdies in his round playing the North Palmer course and he is our top Canuck

Chris Baryla dropped 8 spots T62 @-5 after his -2 70 on the same course. He had 4 birdies on the first nine but slipped a bit with 3 bogey's and a birdie on the back

Matt McQuillan came back to earth with a thud. He took a double bogey 6 on his first hole, dropping 76 spots to a T80 after a +4 76 on the North Palmer course. He went on to add 5 bogey's and 3 birdies and although he putted well (T15) he is near the bottom of the field T117 in GIR and driving accuracy T108..

T1 1 3 Jhonattan Vegas (NP) -13 F* -5  64 67 131
T1 3 1 Boo Weekley (NP) -13 F* -6 65 66 131

T3 7 11 Charles Howell III (PP) -12 F -6  66 66 132
T3 17 12 Chris Couch (SR) -12 F -7  67 65 132
T5 5 23 Keegan Bradley (PP) -11 F -5  66 67 133
T5 15 24 Brian Davis (NP) -11 F* -6  67 66 133
T7 13 38 Cameron Tringale (NP) -10 F* -5  67 67 134
T7 3 16 John Senden (LQ) -10 F* -4 66 68 134
T7 47 16 Jeff Overton (PP) -10 F -7  69 65 134
T7 13 38 Greg Chalmers (PP) -10 F* -5  67 67 134
T7 3 38 Peter Tomasulo (LQ) -10 F -4  66 68 134
T7 3 38 Gary Woodland (LQ) -10 F* -3 65 69 134

Bryan Angus