\u201cGreat two days\u2019 work,\u201d MacIntyre said. \u201cIf you leave yourself in the right positions you can be aggressive with the putts… I feel like my iron play has been top drawer this week and just continue to do that.\u201d Scheffler, the season points leader, was next on 131 after a 65 in his PGA-best 13th bogey-free round of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice to have a clean card today, no bogeys,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cDid some good things out there. Five shots back going into the weekend is not too bad with the way Bob is playing right now. Did a good job to keep within shouting distance of him.\u201d Sweden\u2019s Ludvig Aberg birdied three of the last five holes to shoot 64 and stand second on 132, one stroke ahead of Japan\u2019s Hideki Matsuyama with England\u2019s Tommy Fleetwood and Americans Maverick McNealy and Michael Kim on 134.<\/p>\n
MacIntyre, runner-up to J.J. Spaun at June\u2019s US Open, managed his lowest opening 36-hole score to par in a PGA event, three strokes better than last year at Myrtle Beach.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been working hard,\u201d MacIntyre said. \u201cI\u2019ve been putting really well for a long time now. It was just finding the confidence in the tee to green game and I feel like I\u2019ve done that.\u201d MacIntyre, who began the day with a three-stroke lead over England\u2019s Tommy Fleetwood with top-ranked Scottie Scheffler another stroke adrift, started strong again.<\/p>\n
He sank a birdie putt from just inside five feet at the first hole and rolled in a 17-footer for birdie at the par-five fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I\u2019ve been rolling it, it\u2019s not a surprise,\u201d MacIntyre said of his strong start.<\/p>\n
He sank another birdie putt from just beyond seven feet at the seventh and at 11, MacIntyre rolled it to within three feet of the hole and sank his short birdie putt.<\/p>\n
MacIntyre drained a 28-foot birdie putt at the 14th and reached the green in two at the par-five 16th to set up a tap-in birdie.<\/p>\n
\u201cA low drive to stay short of the bunker and then probably hit the longest three-wood I\u2019ve had on tour, it was 281 (yards) to the front edge and I absolutely smashed it,\u201d MacIntyre said of his effort at 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeft quite a tricky putt but the job is not to make three, the job is to make four and just nudged it down to the hole and knocked it in.\u201d<\/p>\n
– \u2018Hard to moan too much\u2019 –<\/p>\n
MacIntyre, whose two PGA wins came last year at the Canadian and Scottish Opens, is projected to jump from 20th to third on the season points list, with only the top 30 advancing from the BMW, the second FedEx Cup playoff event, to next week\u2019s Tour Championship in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Scheffler, whose four victories this season include major triumphs at the PGA Championship and British Open, hopes to next week become the first back-to-back FedEx Cup winner.<\/p>\n
Matsuyama birdied four of the last eight holes to also shoot a bogey-free 64 and stand on 133 while Fleetwood only managed a 69 and fell eight off MacIntyre\u2019s pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisappointing finish,\u201d Fleetwood said. \u201cFelt like I played good again. I\u2019m in fifth place, so it\u2019s hard to moan too much about it.\u201d <\/p>\n
World number two Rory McIlroy, second in the playoff standings, fired a 66 to stand 11th on 136, 10 off the pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to try to play a good weekend and feel a little bit better about my game going into the Tour Championship,\u201d McIlroy said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert MacIntyre fired a bogey-free six-under par 64 to seize a five-stroke lead over top-ranked Scottie Scheffler after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[2095,1724,4131,64,63,613,42313,43486,56483,56479,56488,56482,9239,2057,56480,2105,755,56485,941,36651,395,42326,2041,2067,3583,5492,42350,31664,6924,2852,42360,56481,56487,85,42307,4200,56486,56484,42347,2614],"class_list":["post-72194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-america","tag-asia","tag-atlanta","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baltimore","tag-bayerische-motoren-werke-ag","tag-birdie-putt","tag-bogey-free-round","tag-bogey-free-six-under","tag-confident-call","tag-disappointing-finish","tag-eastern-asia","tag-europe","tag-five-stroke-lead","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-golf","tag-hsbc-plc","tag-japan","tag-luke-walker","tag-maryland","tag-michael-kim","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-northern-ireland","tag-playoff-event","tag-playoff-standings","tag-robert-macintyre","tag-royal-portrush-golf-club","tag-season-points","tag-season-points-leader","tag-season-points-list","tag-sports","tag-state-of-georgia","tag-sweden","tag-tap-in-birdie","tag-three-stroke-lead","tag-tommy-fleetwood","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72194","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=72194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}