The top duo were two strokes clear of Cameron Young, who charged up the leaderboard with an eight-under 62 that saw Young make six of his nine birdies on the back nine.<\/p>\n
Scotland\u2019s Robert MacIntyre and Patrick Cantlay shared fourth on 10-under and world number one Scottie Scheffler was alone in sixth on eight-under.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
MacIntyre and Cantlay both shot 66 — Cantlay rebounding after a bogey-bogey start to pick up four strokes in his last three holes thanks to birdies at 16 and 17 and an eagle at 18.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Fleetwood said rain-softened East Lake offered plenty of scoring chances — but still demanded accuracy off the tee.<\/p>\n
Tommy Fleetwood delivered a strong performance to join Russell Henley.Source: AP<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you start losing it a little bit off the tee and you\u2019re in the rough, it obviously becomes a lot more difficult to score,\u201d said Fleetwood, who hit 12 of 14 fairways and 13 of 18 greens in regulation.<\/p>\n
The seven-time DP World Tour winner suffered his latest PGA Tour near miss at the St. Jude Championship this month, and was tied for fourth at the BMW Championship last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019m playing really good golf,\u201d he said. \u201cBest possible scenario, put yourself in contention. Play well, put yourself in contention, and go from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the buzz when I am in contention,\u201d added Fleetwood, who now finds himself in the hunt for a first title in a tournament that carries a $10 million first prize. \u201cI\u2019m just excited for the opportunity again.\u201d Henley had rolled in 207 feet of putts as he sizzled on the greens in an opening 61. But after a hole-out birdie at the first he had three birdie putts of about five feet before rolling in his longest birdie of the day, a 14-footer, at the last.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hit my driver awesome,\u201d Henley said. \u201cI hit a lot of shots today that were really good shots that maybe didn\u2019t end up quite close enough or maybe gave myself a little bit of an awkward birdie putt.<\/p>\n
Rory pulls off a Happy Gilmore special! | 00:50<\/p>\n
\u201cBut still feel like I putted it well, hit my lines really well, and just hit a bunch of fairways. That\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do around here.\u201d With low scoring the norm, Scheffler endured a frustrating day that included three bogeys.<\/p>\n
But the American, whose five wins in 2025 include the PGA Championship and British Open, stretched his streak of sub-par rounds to 19 with his fourth birdie of the day at the par-five 18th.<\/p>\n
In the rough off the tee, he took dead aim with his third shot from the fairway and landed it one foot from the pin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those days where it seemed like I wasn\u2019t getting rewarded for what I was doing,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cMy game definitely doesn\u2019t feel off but you look at 18, end up a foot off the fairway.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeventeen I have to chip out sideways, 14 I felt like I hit a god shot in there and it kicked right into the bunker … Just wasn\u2019t as sharp as I needed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy Fleetwood fired a seven-under par 63 on Friday to tie Russell Henley for the halfway lead in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[2095,4131,64,63,66578,64933,33377,32034,66582,64931,1208,66581,2057,755,29991,66579,33059,66583,2041,2067,3583,66580,6924,756,66584,5994,85,42307,66576,66577,42347,42336,2614],"class_list":["post-89404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-america","tag-atlanta","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-awkward-birdie-putt","tag-back-to-back-birdies","tag-birdie-putts","tag-bmw-championship","tag-debut-title","tag-east-lake-country-club","tag-england","tag-english-star","tag-europe","tag-golf","tag-golf-tournament","tag-hole-out-birdie","tag-jude","tag-mike-stewart","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-northern-europe","tag-possible-scenario","tag-robert-macintyre","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-scoring-chances","tag-scotland","tag-sports","tag-state-of-georgia","tag-strokes-clear","tag-stunning-effort","tag-tommy-fleetwood","tag-tour-championship","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89404","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=89404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}