PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Chris Gotterup extended his streak to nine straight birdies over two rounds on two very different courses. He ultimately settled for an 8-under 64 on Thursday in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, leaving him two behind Ryo Hisatsune on a day of gorgeous weather and low scores for practically everyone.<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler was the exception. He had to birdie the par-5 18th at Pebble Beach to avoid joining the short list \u2014 12 players \u2014 who failed to break par.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like typically I’m good at scoring, and today I felt like I didn’t score at all,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cAnything that kind of went wrong seemed to be going that direction. I actually feel like I’m playing pretty well. Just one of those days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hisatsune, coming off two good weeks including a runner-up at Torrey Pines to qualify for this $20 million signature event, had three straight birdies early in his round, made the only birdie on the par-4 ninth and finished with three straight for a 62 at Pebble Beach. <\/p>\n
He was one shot ahead of Keegan Bradley and Sam Burns. Bradley played at Spyglass Hill, where the course average was about one-and-a-half shots higher that Pebble Beach.<\/p>\n
Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., was the top Canadian with a 65, one shot ahead of Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont. <\/p>\n
Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., finished the day with a 70 and Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont. had a 71. <\/p>\n
Defending champion Rory McIlroy, in his first PGA Tour start of the year, had a pair of three-putt double bogeys on the par 5s at Spyglass that caused him to settle for a 68.<\/p>\n
Gotterup, who already has two wins this year, made three straight birdies to finish off his victory in the Phoenix Open last week, the last one in a playoff. From desert warmth to the California coastal chill, from carpet greens to poa annua, there was no change in his game.<\/p>\n
A short birdie putt on No. 1, a 10-footer on the par-5 second, nearly jarring a wedge on the third, and on it went. Six holes into the round, he had six birdies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was kind of just coasting along,\u201d Gotterup said. \u201cYou don’t really realize it in the moment, and then when you look up you’re like, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m 6 under through six.’ That’s nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley chipped in from just off the green on No. 8 at Spyglass for a birdie-eagle-birdie burst, and he kept a clean card the rest of the way for the best score on the course that typically plays the hardest in calm conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about as nice of a day as I\u2019ve ever seen out here,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cThe greens are soft but that gets them a little bumpy, too. So some of the putts are a little dicey, but definitely scoring is good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pebble Beach can be a pushover with no wind, particularly the opening seven holes. That’s where Hisatsune (five birdies) and Gotterup (six) made hay. <\/p>\n
Scheffler, not so much. <\/p>\n
It started with a clump of mud on his ball in the fairway on the par-5 second that sent his shot some 30 yards left of the green. He picked up only one birdie during that opening stretch, and then a strong breeze was largely into him on the way back in. And he wasn’t particularly sharp.<\/p>\n
He hit only two approach shots inside 10 feet (and missed them both), and he didn’t make a putt longer than 8 feet for his round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess the challenge is making a bunch of birdies. That was a challenge for me today,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI\u2019m looking at the leaderboard right now and it looks like 7 under gets you in the top 10, so scores are pretty low,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Burns didn’t take advantage of the early holes, either. And then he birdied No. 8 over the ocean with a bold approach that settled 12 feet away between the back pin and the right bunker. And with the wind picking up a little strength, he had five birdies in a six-hole stretch to start the back nine. That included pitching in from just under 30 yards on the 13th.<\/p>\n
Burns led the field in putting \u2014 it helps making from 45 feet on No. 10 and 30 feet on No. 17 \u2014 and kept bogeys off his card. <\/p>\n
\u201cI made a significant amount of putts and feel like I was hitting it pretty nice. It was a good combination for today,\u201d Burns said.<\/p>\n
Tony Finau and Patrick Rodgers each had 64 at Spyglass to join Gotterup in a tie for fourth. A pair of former Pebble champions, Taylor and Tom Hoge, were in the group at 65. Another shot back was Jordan Spieth, who holed out a full wedge for eagle at Spyglass.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Chris Gotterup extended his streak to nine straight birdies over two rounds on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-471631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}