Former US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick hit a superb, bogey-free 63 to claim a one-shot lead over Viktor Hovland after a punishing second round at the RBC Heritage in South Carolina.<\/p>\n
On a day of sweltering heat and unpredictable wind, the Englishman moved to 14 under par with an impeccable round helped by a stroke of fortune at the par-three 14th.<\/p>\n
After pulling his tee shot towards the trees, Fitzpatrick’s ball struck a cart path, ricocheted back on to the green, and was only prevented from trickling into the water by a well-positioned sprinkler head.<\/p>\n
He capitalised fully, holing the subsequent 30-foot putt for an improbable birdie.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, it was lucky, there’s no two ways about it,” Fitzpatrick said. “Sometimes you need that in a week, so it’s nice to get, and then even nicer to take advantage of it.”<\/p>\n
The 2023 champion followed up with two further birdies in his final three holes to surge ahead of the field.<\/p>\n
Norway’s Hovland remains his closest challenger after a stunning birdie at the 17th kept him in the hunt.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t say I striped it today, but at least I kind of kept the ball in front of me, and that’s what you’re trying to do on this golf course,” Hovland said.<\/p>\n
World number one Scottie Scheffler, playing alongside Fitzpatrick, produced a characteristically disciplined 67. Despite hitting every fairway, the American struggled to convert several birdie opportunities and sits seven shots adrift.<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth was among those to suffer in the tricky conditions, carding three double bogeys in a frustrating 72, while Akshay Bhatia hit 11 birdies in a round of 63 to climb back to -6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick hit a superb, bogey-free 63 to claim a one-shot lead over Viktor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-537425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}