{"id":330332,"date":"2025-12-05T23:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T23:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330332\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T23:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T23:01:12","slug":"cameron-young-j-j-spaun-in-large-group-atop-hero-world-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330332\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Young, J.J. Spaun in large group atop Hero World Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASSAU, Bahamas — U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun<\/a> converted two of his three eagle chances, Cameron Young<\/a> shot 30 on the back nine and Hideki Matsuyama<\/a> was bogey-free, all of them part of another five-way tie for the lead Friday in the Hero World Challenge.<\/p>\n

Missing from a share of the lead was Scottie Scheffler<\/a>, who briefly had the lead to himself.<\/p>\n

Scheffler holed an 18-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th right about the time Young finally cooled off by missing an 8-foot par putt on the 18th. That put Scheffler at 11-under par for a one-shot lead that lasted all of one hole.<\/p>\n

He pulled his tee shot on the 16th for the second straight day, this time having to take a penalty shot to get out of a palmetto bush. Then, he misjudged the trajectory of a blind shot and it clipped the top of another palmetto bush, leading to a double bogey.<\/p>\n

Akshay Bhatia<\/a> birdied the 18th for a 68 to join former U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark<\/a> (68), Spaun (68), Matsuyama (66) and Young (64).<\/p>\n

They were at 10-under 134 at Albany Golf Club, where nearly half of the 20-man field was separated by two shots going into the weekend.<\/p>\n

Spaun made only five eagles all season and then seized on the scoring holes. He hit a 3-wood to 3 feet on the par-5 sixth and hit tee shot on the reachable par-4 14th settled 5 feet away, both of them eagles. He narrowly missed a 15-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th.<\/p>\n

That allowed him to recover from a pair of bogeys on the opening four holes.<\/p>\n

“Didn’t get a great start, but salvaged a pretty decent round,” Spaun said.<\/p>\n

Bhatia, in his final tournament before getting married, saved himself at the end with a nifty par save from short of the 16th green and then a bogey on the par-3 17th when he chipped through the green and into a bunker, blasted out and made a 15-foot putt to keep it from being worse.<\/p>\n

He has a new caddie for this week, Joe Greiner, the longtime looper for Max Homa<\/a> until earlier this year. Bhatia likes that Greiner also swings left-handed and their communication is working.<\/p>\n

Scheffler had a 69 and was tied at 9-under 135 with Alex Noren<\/a> (66) and Sepp Straka<\/a> (69), with former Albany resident Justin Rose<\/a> another shot back after a 68.<\/p>\n

“I think I did some good things out there. Just a few too many mistakes, but overall still felt pretty good,” Scheffler said.<\/p>\n

Billy Horschel<\/a> had a 68 and was five shots behind. He missed most of this year after hip surgery and is the only player in the 20-man field who has not secured a spot in the Masters. Horschel is at No. 45 in the world ranking – the top 50 at the end of the year get into the Masters – and a solid finish could settle that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASSAU, Bahamas — U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun converted two of his three eagle chances, Cameron Young shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-330332","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\/330332","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=330332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}