{"id":947189,"date":"2026-10-31T04:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T04:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947189\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T04:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T04:42:13","slug":"australias-overnight-leader-slips-at-mexico-open-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947189\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia&#8217;s overnight leader slips at Mexico Open \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia\u2019s overnight pacesetter Karl Vilips has slipped down the leaderboard in the second round of the Mexico Open on the US PGA Tour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A day after firing a nine-under 62, Vilips shot a three-over 74 at the Vidanta Vallarta course in Vallarta on Friday (Saturday AEDT).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 25-year-old is six-under for the tournament, sliding from leader to tied for 34th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vilips is eight shy of the leader, American Andrew Novak, who shot a 10-under 61 second-round to jump to 14 under.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vilips couldn\u2019t find his first-round form when he carded 10 birdies, with his second round marred by six bogeys including three on his initial four holes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The only other Australian in the field, Cam Davis, produced a better second round to survive the cut, carding 67 after his initial 71, to be tied for 59th heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Davis, who was even-par overnight, was treading water for much of his round until landing an eagle on his 16th hole of the day, the 584 metre par-5 sixth.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793421733_961_.jpeg\" alt=\"Golf\"\/>Aussie Karl Vilips has work to do to get back in contention. (<a href=\"https:\/\/photos.aap.com.au\/search\/20260417147067651755\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AP PHOTO<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The tournament pacesetter, North Carolina-born Novak, holds a three-shot buffer from five golfers at 11 under \u2013 Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, American duo Kihei Akina and Ben Griffen, Japan\u2019s Kensei Hirata and Belgium\u2019s Adrien Dumont de Chassart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Akina is an amateur who continued his impressive string of results on the PGA Tour \u2013 he\u2019s carded rounds of 67 and 64.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 20-year-old sophomore at Brigham Young University in Utah now has posted nine rounds of 67 or better in his past four PGA tournaments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m feeling more comfortable with each round played,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s my first time going from an event to another event, so back-to-back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit different for me in that aspect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEvery new tournament, every new round, is a learning experience for me. And this one here was a really great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s overnight pacesetter Karl Vilips has slipped down the leaderboard in the second round of the Mexico Open&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,2791,755,405163,85],"class_list":["post-947189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-central-america","tag-golf","tag-overseas-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947189","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=947189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}