Rahm leads a trio tied for second at 9 under, including McKibbin, RangeGoats GC\u2019s Matthew Wolff and Smash GC\u2019s Harold Varner III. Fireballs GC\u2019s Luis Masaveu sits alone in fifth at 8 under.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First-round leader Victor Perez slipped into a tie for sixth after a 2-over 73, now three shots off the pace alongside Hatton and Wild Card player Richard T. Lee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rahm, the league\u2019s current points leader and reigning two-time Individual Champion, once again showed his ability to stay steady \u2014 even if Friday wasn\u2019t as smooth as the scorecard suggested.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was a bit of a frustrating day,\u201d he said. \u201cI think whether it was the wind or the altitude, there was quite a few shots that were on a really good line and were very far off \u2026 there\u2019s things that can happen, but it doesn\u2019t make it any easier.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite that, Rahm continues to give himself chances as he chases his second win of the year and fourth of his LIV Golf career. The outright lead Friday is the 16th (solo or tied) since joining the league prior to the 2024 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m clearly playing good enough, I just need to take advantage of the opportunities I\u2019ve been giving myself,\u201d he said. \u201cAs good as I\u2019m playing, I still feel like it could be better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wolff delivered one of the rounds of the week so far with a bogey-free 6-under 65, which is no small feat given how he described his ball-striking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI told my caddie after I finished up, I said, I would have never guessed that that round would be bogey-free,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cI feel really good with the putter, so I think that helped a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the clean card, Wolff admitted it was far from stress-free. A lengthy par save from 36 feet on the 12th hole highlighted his resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, extremely,\u201d he said when asked if the round was mentally draining. \u201cIt\u2019s just stressful \u2026 it was kind of the opposite today. I was scrambling a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wolff also credited the energy of the Mexico City crowd while noting the added physical challenge of altitude. \u201cAll the kids and the fans are shouting \u2018Wolff\u2019\u2026 it\u2019s great,\u201d he said. \u201cAltitude is hard, though\u2026 I was so out of breath.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
McKibbin matched Wolff\u2019s 65 to give Legion XIII two players inside the top three, while Varner stayed firmly in contention with a 5-under round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Masaveu continued his impressive week with a second consecutive 6-under round, keeping himself within striking distance entering the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Further down the leaderboard, Marc Leishman produced the low round of the day, a 7-under 64, vaulting into a tie for 11th after opening with a 3-over 74.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rahm leads a trio tied for second at 9 under, including McKibbin, RangeGoats GC\u2019s Matthew Wolff and Smash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-611793","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\/611793","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=611793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}