Second round: McLachlin dazzles; Wie misses cut
RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Michelle Wie failed in her eighth attempt to make the cut on the PGA TOUR, shooting a second-round 80 at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open on Friday. Parker McLachlin tied the course record with a 62 to take a four-stroke lead over 1987 Masters winner Larry Mize and three others.
Wie was 1-over-par 73 Thursday as she attempted to become the first woman since World War II to make the cut on TOUR. But a quintuple-bogey 9 on Friday helped push her to 9-over 153 at the par-72 Montreux Golf & Country Club.
"I feel my game is a lot better. Obviously the score doesn't show it, but I know what I need to work on," Wie said. "I gave it my best today and I felt like I did a lot of good things and hopefully that outshines the ones I made mistakes on."
The 18-year-old, who was making her first PGA TOUR appearance since January 2007, had two bogeys and one birdie through her first nine holes and was within striking distance of the even-par cut line at the 7,472-yard mountain course.
But she had a double bogey on her 13th hole of the day after she hit her second shot over the green into heavy rough on the 518-yard, par-5 No. 4.
With a difficult downhill lie, her chip came up short, still in the rough. Her next pitch rolled over the green into the rough again before she finally chipped onto the green and two putted.
The quintuple-bogey 9 came four holes later on the 464-yard, par-4 eighth, when she had to take two penalty strokes.
Her first tee shot ended up with an unplayable lie in the trees and the second one went left into a waste area with sage brush and pine trees, where she had to take another drop and needed four more shots to reach the green. She finished with a birdie on the 626-yard, par-5 ninth.
Not since "Mildred" Babe Zaharias played at the 1945 Tucson Open has a woman made the cut on the PGA TOUR.
Wie didn't know if she'd make another run at a PGA event in the future.
"I think if I played a couple (PGA TOUR events) in a row, it would be a different story. It's just hard to play one and then one maybe a year later," she said. "I think if I played eight in a row and I missed all eight, that would be a different story."
McLachlin, who has five top-25 TOUR finishes this year and ranks 98th on the tour money list, birdied seven of the last 10 holes and had 10 on the day in a bogey-free round. His stellar wedge play put him within 7 feet of the pin seven times -- twice inside 2 feet and once to 4 inches.
"Nothing really crazy. It was just pretty solid," McLachlin said about his round during calm conditions in the morning that left him at 14-under 130 after two days of play.
"Everything went pretty smoothly out there. I hit a lot of fairways, lots of greens and made a bunch of 10-footers. I mean, just kind of the way you like to draw it up," he said.
McLachlin missed a 4-foot birdie attempt on the par-4 18th that would have broken the record Bill Glasson set in 2005 and Joe Ogilvie matched in 2006. His previous best on tour was a 65, though he said he shot a 63 once on the Nationwide Tour and carded a 59 at the course he represents in Hawaii, where he was born and grew up.
"I didn't know what the course record was but I caught myself thinking about 59 at No. 14. I had like about a 10-footer," said McLachlin, who had birdied six of the previous seven holes.
"I thought, 'If I birdie the last five holes I can shoot 59.' And that's just the worst thing to think. So I made par there," he said, as well as at the 15th.
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| Friday's Best |
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The par-5, 636-yard 17th was the easiest with a scoring average of 4.662.
The par-4, 464-yard 8th was the toughest with a scoring average of 4.308.
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John Rollins is in the hunt entering this weekend, thanks in part to his wedge play Friday -- particular at the par-4 13th when he chipped in from just off the green for the first of four birdies in his final six holes.
Well, a 62 speaks for itself -- and it spoke loudly for Parker McLachlin, who used his 10-under round to zoom atop the leaderboard. His five birdies between the 8th and 13th holes is the best six-hole stretch of his TOUR career. MIZE AIMING FOR RARE TOP 10
Larry Mize, the winner of the 1987 Masters, has made 138 PGA TOUR starts since the start of the 2000 season. During that span, he has five top 10 finishes, his best being a tie for second at the Marconi Pennsylvania Classic.
But Mize, who turns 50 on Sept. 23, will enter this weekend in good position to make a run at a top 10 finish, thanks to his 6-under 66 on Friday that gives him a 36-hole total of 10 under, good enough for a tie for second, four shots off the pace set by Parker McLachlin.
Mize hasn't won on TOUR since the 1993 Buick Open, but with a 68-66 start this week, he's showing he has a little game left -- and that the guys on the Champions Tour better watch out.
Here's a look at Mize's top 10 TOUR finishes this decade.
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McLACHLIN SETS A PERSONAL BEST
Compiled by Elias Sports Bureau, Inc.
• Parker McLachlin's second-round 62 is by far the best round of his PGA TOUR career. McLachlin's previous low was a 65, which he's accomplished four times. McLachlin's previous best round relative to par is a seven under-par 65 at the Turning Stone Resort Championship in 2007.
| 1 | Drive of 400 yards in the second round, with Charles Warren doing the honors |
| 3 | Drives of 375 yards or more by Jason Allred in the second round |
| 5 | Missed Greens in Regulation by Parker McLachlin, the fewest of any player through the first 36 holes |
During Friday's round, McLachlin made 10 birdies and eight pars. This is the most holes McLachlin has played under par in a round on TOUR. Five of McLachlin's 10 birdies came during a six hole stretch from the 8th to the 13th. Never before on TOUR had McLachlin had a stretch of six holes in which he was able to play five under par.
The 10-under par ties McLachlin with Bill Glasson (round 2, 2005) and Joe Ogilvie (round 4, 2006) for the lowest score in a single round at the Reno-Tahoe Open.
• John Merrick has had only one bogey over the first 36 holes of play in Reno; this is the second-fewest bogeys through two rounds of his TOUR career. In this year's Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun, Merrick played the first 36 holes without recording a single score over-par.
• Ryan Palmer began the second round in Reno with four-straight birdies, en route to a 6-under finish. The streak of four birdies is the longest streak of holes-under-par to begin a round in Palmer's TOUR career.
THINGS TO WATCH ON SATURDAY
1. Will McLachlin keep it going? Until Friday, Parker McLachlin had never held a 36-hole lead at a PGA TOUR event. Earlier this year, he held a share of the first-round lead at the AT&T Classic, a tournament in which he eventually finished T5. The second-round leader has gone on to win 14 of 32 stroke-play events on TOUR this season, including the last two tournaments.
2. Watch out for Flanagan. Nick Flanagan, the 2007 Nationwide Tour Player of the Year, posted a 7-under 65 to move into a share of second place. After a frustrating start to this season, he has turned the corner with four straight made cuts and a T11 at the U.S. Bank Championship two weeks ago.
3. The last 50-plus guy. There were four players 50 years or older entered in the tournament, but only Dan Forsman made the cut. Forsman, who made his Champions Tour debut two weeks ago at the 3M Championship, shot 72-70 and stands at T41. The others -- Dick Mast (57), Kenny Knox (51) and Lance Ten Broeck (52) -- did not make the cut.
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