PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Brooks Koepka doesn\u2019t aspire to simply make the weekends. Ben Silverman was merely hoping to play, period.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll return to PGA National on Saturday, after bouncing back in the second round of the Cognizant Classic.<\/p>\n
Koepka shot a 5-under 66 on Friday, trimming eight shots from his opening round score, and Silverman shaved six shots from his opening round with a 3-under 67. That got them well within the cut line, and both are at 2 under headed into the weekend \u2014 nine shots behind leader Austin Smotherman (69).<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m out here to try to make cuts, I\u2019m probably done,\u201d said Koepka, the five-time major championship winner who is a native of Palm Beach County and has a bit of a home-field edge this week. He has now made two of three cuts since returning to the PGA Tour earlier this year following a stint of nearly four years with Saudi-backed LIV.<\/p>\n
Koepka only hit six of 14 fairways on Friday but putted the ball far better and made six birdies \u2014 four more than he had in Round 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hit it a lot worse today,\u201d Koepka said. \u201cDidn\u2019t drive it nearly as good. Iron play wasn\u2019t as good, but the putter was better. Made a few adjustments after the round yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smotherman stayed red-hot, with a 55-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th among the highlights as he took a three-shot lead into the weekend. Taylor Moore is second, solo at 8 under after his second consecutive 67. A.J Ewart of Coquitlam, B.C., (64, the round of the day) is at 7 under, tied for third with Nico Echavarria (72).<\/p>\n
Ewart played his college golf at Barry University in Miami Shores, maybe a 90-minute drive or so from Palm Beach Gardens. He\u2019s been to the Cognizant before as a fan and remembers following Koepka around in the past \u2014 though confessed some of the memories are hazy. \u201cCouple too many drinks sitting in the Bear Trap,\u201d he said, referring the stretch of holes 15 through 17 at PGA National.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into the week, I had never actually played the golf course, but I felt like I knew it just from watching it,\u201d Ewart said. \u201cSomewhat of a home game, yeah. It feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepka thought he\u2019d be playing the first two rounds with Daniel Berger \u2014 another Palm Beach County player \u2014 and Will Zalatoris. But Zalatoris withdrew shortly before Round 1 with an ankle injury, giving Silverman a chance to get into the field as an alternate.<\/p>\n
Silverman \u2014 who is from Thornhill, Ont., and lives in Jupiter, about a 15-minute drive from the course that Cognizant calls home \u2014 put together rounds of 73-67 to make the weekend. He missed the cut by four shots at PGA National last year in this event. Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., (65) and Sudarshan Yellamaraju of Mississauga, Ont., (72) are also into the weekend at 2 under.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy focus going into the week was I\u2019m taking a week off at home, and if I get in, great. I was 15th alternate Sunday. I moved to 13th Monday morning, then that moved to fourth Monday afternoon, and the three guys in front of me I knew were committed to Argentina, so once they pulled out Wednesday, then it was, \u2018Maybe I\u2019ve got a chance now,\u2019\u201d Silverman said. \u201cI was pretty excited when it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was also pretty tired when the first two rounds were done. Back-to-back days of 4:30 a.m. alarms \u2014 with about 18 hours of being at the course in that span \u2014 will do that to someone. He went through two gym sessions and two warm-ups on Thursday morning even before getting the call that Zalatoris couldn\u2019t play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was awesome,\u201d Silverman said. \u201cHonestly, I would love to play in a group like that every day, major winners, multiple PGA Tour winners. It\u2019s a different vibe, different energy amongst the players, amongst the crowd. I like that environment. That\u2019s where I want to be. Thanks to Will, unfortunately, but throwing me in that position was fortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Koepka: \u201cI think he\u2019ll enjoy his sleep tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Brooks Koepka doesn\u2019t aspire to simply make the weekends. Ben Silverman was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-504943","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\/504943","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=504943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}