26 year old Brandon Grace buoyed by the rescue shot of the day shot 68 -13 to take a share of the lead alongside playing partner Emiliano Grillo 67, Scotland’s Marc Warren 67, and Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger 68, after a day full of twists and turns at the top of the leaderboard. At the 5th Grace drove it right, into the trees then had to snap hook a wedge around them to 5 feet for the birdie.
Wiesberger led for much of the day after birdieing the second and third and then curled in a 20 foot putt at the 12th and seemed to be in control of the situation until he pulled his tee shot into the desert at the driveable 16th and made his first bogey then made a five footer at the last at least keeping him in a share of top spot.
It was another perfect azure blue sky day on this Doha course, remember it's a Wednesday- Saturday event, Sunday is the first day of the working week. If you'd forgotten where they were playing we were reminded about 5am est when the local muslim leader got on the mosque's PA system and started calling everyone to prayers..none of the players even paused.. yet they can just lose it with the snap of a camera..!!
PGA Tour Humana Challenge scoreboard http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/humana-challenge-in-partnership-with-the-clinton-foundation/leaderboard.html
The PGA pros love this week in what will always be known as the Hope playing 3 easy desert courses with perfect greens in ideal weather. It's a nice way to ease into the year, they raise a ton of money, there are celebrities galore paying a fortune to play and the winning score (just 4 rounds now, used to be 5) is around -26.
Micheal Putnam is your leader, he made nine birdies in an 11-hole stretch in his 63. He birdied Nos. 7, 9 and 10 on the Nicklaus course and ran off six in a row on Nos. 12-17.
“The course is in perfect shape,” Putnam said. “Greens are good. … I made a lot of birdies at the end. Hit a lot of close shots, a lot of 5-, 10-foot putts. I made them all, so I got to be happy about that.”
Mark Wilson, John Peterson, Francesco Molinari and Scott Pinckney matched Blake Adams at 64. Wilson and Peterson played the Nicklaus course, Molinari opened on the Arnold Palmer Private Course and Pinckney was at La Quinta
Phil Mickelson got all the ink, he looked rusty but fit to me, shot -1 71 which is like shooting 76 on normal PGA Tour courses. Defending champion Patrick Reed opened with 65.
Canadians Nick Taylor had a solid -6 66 to T11 on the Palmer Private and he is just 3 shots off the lead, Graham DeLaet -4 68 T29 Nicklaus Private after overcoming 2 bogey's on his front nine, Adam Hadwin E 72 at LaQuinta, David Hearn E 72 (NP), Roger Sloan +2 74 (NP) and Mike Weir +8 80 (NP)
Bryan Angus
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