{"id":86189,"date":"2025-08-16T02:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T02:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/86189\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T02:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T02:30:07","slug":"rasmus-hojgaard-hoping-to-solidify-ryder-bid-leads-in-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/86189\/","title":{"rendered":"Rasmus H\u00f8jgaard, hoping to solidify Ryder bid, leads in Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aug 15, 2025, 02:17 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"bfb2fb79-df58-af1e-8b3d-227c242e472e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/11253\/rasmus-h\u00f8jgaard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rasmus H\u00f8jgaard<\/a> delighted the home fans and boosted his Ryder Cup push by opening up a two-shot lead at the Danish Golf Championship on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>H\u00f8jgaard added a 7-under 64 to his opening 66 at Fureso Golf Club to take the lead at the halfway mark of his home tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old Dane is currently eighth on Team Europe&#8217;s Ryder Cup points list, just outside the automatic top six spots, with <a data-player-guid=\"cab4b4c6-2fde-c332-69aa-4c0093f316de\" href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/601\/luke-donald\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Luke Donald<\/a> making six captain picks after the Betfred British Masters on Aug. 24.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/story\/_\/id\/45980778\/nicolai-hojgaard-2-holed-eagles-3-holes-dp-world\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/r1318435_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/story\/_\/id\/45966660\/nixed-being-ryder-cup-playing-captain-do-both\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/r1495292_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You feed off each other a little bit,&#8221; H\u00f8jgaard said of the Danish fans. &#8220;I was obviously feeling good out there. Trying to make as many birdies as possible, and with them cheering me on, I just wanted to keep it going for as long as possible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It died a little towards the end when I made that annoying bogey at 8, but it was a great atmosphere out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>H\u00f8jgaard, who started at the 10th hole, began with six straight pars before backing up a birdie at the 16th with an eagle at the par-5 18th after hitting his approach shot to three feet.<\/p>\n<p>A run of five birdies in the opening six holes on his back nine gave him breathing space at the top.<\/p>\n<p>H\u00f8jgaard&#8217;s solitary bogey at No. 8 cost him the outright course record, instead matching <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4585549\/marco-penge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marco Penge<\/a>&#8216;s first-round score Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t try to do too much out there,&#8221; said H\u00f8jgaard, who won this tournament in 2023. &#8220;I was just striking the ball well, had an idea of where it was going and set up a lot of chances.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Penge is two shots back at 10 under after a 68 consisting of six birdies and three bogeys, while Canadian <a data-player-guid=\"13adcd5e-75ab-036e-b0ec-5d0f1df3befa\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/440752\/aaron-cockerill\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aaron Cockerill<\/a> sits in third, three strokes further back.<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"f05dcefa-d131-4d1e-c285-6c59305709f0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/6962\/adrien-saddier\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Adrien Saddier<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"95b9f2fe-a3e2-1826-a366-14a16bc10686\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/10571\/maximilian-steinlechner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Maximilian Steinlechner<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"d90ee75c-fbc0-91a5-eae7-27a48871f10c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/438243\/niklas-norgaard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Niklas Norgaard<\/a> are in a group at 6 under.<\/p>\n<p>Scotland&#8217;s <a data-player-guid=\"2d6c75da-2c7d-0eea-16b4-f26bfcaff666\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/4276\/marc-warren\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marc Warren<\/a> fell down the leaderboard with a disappointing second-round 74 after his opening 66, five of his seven bogeys coming on the back nine, while Englishman <a data-player-guid=\"516e4c95-b159-3fdb-b37c-d26e27c1b0c9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/10548\/matt-wallace\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Wallace<\/a> eagled the last for a 70 to make the cut at 1 under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 15, 2025, 02:17 PM ET Rasmus H\u00f8jgaard delighted the home fans and boosted his Ryder Cup push&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-86189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}