{"id":314003,"date":"2025-11-28T09:17:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314003\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T09:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:17:16","slug":"japanese-born-new-zealander-takes-lead-after-2-rounds-of-the-australian-pga-golf-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314003\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese-born New Zealander takes lead after 2 rounds of the Australian PGA golf tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Associated Press<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">BRISBANE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Japanese-born New Zealander Kazuma Kobori finished his round with four consecutive birdies for an 8-under 63 Friday to take a one-stroke lead into the third round of the Australian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/golf\/pga-tour\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PGA<\/a> Championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">Kobori, who won the 2019 New Zealand PGA Championship, had a two-round total of 10-under 132 at Royal Queensland. He had a hole-in-one during his first round.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">Australian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/golf\/brett-rankin-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brett Rankin<\/a>, who shot 69 Friday, was among a group tied for second. Rankin completed his first round earlier in the day due to a thunderstorm suspension on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">Sebastian Garcia of Spain, who led Rankin by one stroke after the first round, had a 72 Friday and was three strokes behind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/golf\/marco-penge-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marco Penge<\/a>, who won three times on the European tour this year and is the tournament\u2019s highest-ranked player at No. 30, shot 65 Friday and was also three strokes off the lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">The tournament is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australia and the European tour, which is starting its 2025-26 season just two weeks after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/golf\/rory-mcilroy-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rory McIlroy<\/a> won the Race to Dubai title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">McIlroy will highlight the field in next week&#8217;s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne beginning Dec. 4.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-160ccf97=\"\">AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n<p>\n        What did you think of this story?\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Associated Press BRISBANE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Japanese-born New Zealander Kazuma Kobori finished his round with four consecutive birdies&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-314003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}