HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Gary Woodland felt a weight lifted from speaking publicly about his mental health struggles, and he looked freer than ever Friday with a 7-under 63 in the Houston Open to build a three-shot lead going into the weekend at Memorial Park.<\/p>\n
Woodland sounded more pleased with not getting down about one bad swing than his finish of three straight birdies that allowed him to build some separation.<\/p>\n
He was at 13-under 127, three ahead of Nicolai Hjogaard (62) and Jackson Suber (63) on a comfortable day of good scoring for most everyone.<\/p>\n
Brooks Koepka was an exception. Coming off a 75 marred by three double bogeys in the first round, Koepka had a triple bogey on the par-3 second hole, his 11th of the day. He shot 69 to miss the cut for the second time since his return from LIV Golf.<\/p>\n
Woodland wasn’t dialed in off the tee, hitting only five fairways, but Memorial Park has enough room to let it fly and he was rarely out of position. He finished off his round with a wedge to 3 feet on the par-5 16th, a 15-foot birdie on the 17th and a 12-foot birdie on the 18th.<\/p>\n
But what stuck with him was a tee shot he yanked into the water left of the 13th fairway, leading to a penalty drop and ultimately having to make a 4-foot putt to escape with bogey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was proud of myself because what Randy Smith, my coach, calls an \u2018oops.\u2019 I had a bad swing there on 13, and I\u2019ve hit it so well the last couple days, I didn\u2019t let that bother me,\u201d Woodland said. \u201cI told myself to forget about it and move on, and I was able to do that. That was a big change for me to let that go and keep doing what I\u2019ve been doing the last couple days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2019 U.S. Open champion has been playing a well-rounded game, in control of his swing and confident on the greens after he realized his alignment was off and changed his putter to help.<\/p>\n
Mostly, he feels big support and greater comfort following his decision to publicly talk about his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Woodland is recovering from September 2023 brain surgery to remove a lesion on a part of the brain that causes moments of unfounded fear.<\/p>\n
He felt \u201c1,000 pounds lighter” after that Golf Channel interview. And he’s feeling it from the gallery in Houston as he goes after a win would get him in the Masters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt, and I feed off that,\u201d Woodland said. \u201cThis as much as any week, I feel like I\u2019ve had a lot of support. Kind of feel like I\u2019m playing at home. The fans have been amazing. I kind of need that energy to help me through the day, that definitely helps. That\u2019s something hopefully I can ride on this weekend as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hojgaard also has the Masters on his mind. He is No. 47 in the world ranking, and the top 50 after this week secure invitations to Augusta National in two weeks. Hojgaard removed a lot of doubt with his round of 62. He did Woodland one better, making birdies on his last four holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so easy to say it\u2019s not on my mind, good golf will take care of it,\u201d Hojgaard said of the Masters. \u201cIt’s on my mind 100 percent. We all want to be there. But when I\u2019m playing golf out there, I didn\u2019t think about it today. I feel like my game is good enough to qualify for it, but there\u2019s two more days here in Houston and I like where my game is at.”<\/p>\n
Defending champion Min Woo Lee and Jason Day each shot 63 and were four shots behind, with Michael Thorbjornsen (64) another shot back. Thorbjornsen is at No. 56 in the world \u2014 he lost a big opportunity to move up with a rough Sunday at The Players Championship \u2014 but he is in good shape going into the weekend in Houston.<\/p>\n
Sudarshan Yellamaraju of Mississauga, Ont., was the leading Canadian at 5 under after a 66 on Friday. Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont., and A.J. Ewart of Coquitlam, B.C., all missed the cut.<\/p>\n
Pierceson Coody’s chances of the Masters took a big hit. The grandson of 1971 Masters champion Charles Coody is at No. 51 in the world. But he was forced to withdraw with a back injury Friday morning. He is projected to go to No. 50, but would need no one to pass him.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Gary Woodland felt a weight lifted from speaking publicly about his mental health struggles, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-566566","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\/566566","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=566566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}