The Daily Wrap-up: Day 2, RBC Canadian Open

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Jerry Kelly will sleep on the partial-round lead at the Canadian Open, where he is 11 under and one-stroke ahead of the field.
McGrath/Getty Images
Jerry Kelly will sleep on the partial-round lead at the Canadian Open, where he is 11 under and one-stroke ahead of the field.
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Jul. 24, 2009

OAKVILLE, Ontario (AP) -- Jerry Kelly topped the leaderboard Friday in the rain-delayed RBC Canadian Open, shooting a 7-under 65 in the completion of the first round and reaching 11 under overall with three holes remaining in the second.

Camilo Villegas, Tim Herron, Martin Laird and Nathan Green were a stroke back.

Villegas, tied for the first-round lead with Kevin Na after a 63 in the morning, also had three holes to play. Herron had two holes to go, Laird one and Green six.

Na, unable to start play, and Bob Estes were 9 under. Estes had five holes left.

The 42-year-old Kelly, who won in New Orleans in April, had seven birdies in a nine-hole stretch in the first round on the rain-softened Glen Abbey course.

"You can get after it," Kelly said.

In the second round, Kelly had five birdies and a bogey before play was suspended for the day because of lightning at 7:29 p.m. -- 29 minutes after a delay that lasted nearly three hours. About 20 minutes after play was called, the course was drenched again.

"If we get any rain during the day tomorrow, we're at what they call field capacity," PGA TOUR tournament director Steve Carman said about the course hit by more than 2 inches of rain in the last two days. "The sponge is full of water."

The TOUR still hopes to be able to play four rounds.

"Our regulations dictate that we're playing 72 holes by the end of Monday, then the option would be to go back to 54 holes," Carman said. "But we're pretty much regulated to try and get 72 holes in by the end of the day Monday."

There also is a possibility of a Tuesday finish.

"Again, according to the regulations, if you're playing the final round, and half the field finishes on Monday night, that would force you to go into Tuesday to finish that round. That's pretty much the only way we could go to Tuesday."

Villegas matched Na in the morning, playing the final six holes in 6 under. The Colombian hit to an inch to set up a birdie on the 152-yard 15th and holed a 15-foot eagle chip on the par-5 18th.

"What a great way to finish the round," Villegas said.

Lee Janzen, 5 under after 30 holes, withdrew after play was stopped. Aaron Baddeley, Tag Ridings, Greg Owen, David Gossett, Robert Garrigus, Mark Brooks, Carl Pettersson and Brian Davis also withdrew.

Stephen Ames topped the 15 Canadians in the field. He shot a 68 in the first round and was 7 under with three holes to play in the second.

"It's difficult," Ames said. "Stop, start, stop, start."

Mike Weir was stuck at 1 under after shooting a 71 Thursday and never making it onto the course Friday. His opening round was interrupted by a seven-hour delay.

Weir and Ames, a naturalized Canadian citizen from Trinidad & Tobago, are both trying to become the first Canadian winner since Pat Fletcher in 1954.

DIVOTS: Arjun Atwal and Briny Baird aced the 132-yard 15th. They each won 2009 BMW Z4 Roadsters. ... Former Southern California star Jamie Lovemark opened with a 74 in his pro debut and was 3 under overall after playing 10 holes in the second round in 5 under.

Other notables at the RBC Canadian Open
Name Score Position Comment Saturday tee time (ET)
Camilo Villegas 10 under T2 An early 63 put Villegas in contention after Round 1, and he's 1 under through 15 holes of the second round, sitting one shot off the lead. 7:30 a.m.
Stephen Ames 7 under T9 The best positioned Canadian in the field through two days at Glen Abbey, Ames is 3 under through 15 holes and looking to improve upon his first-round 68. 7:30 a.m.
Anthony Kim 7 under T9 It looks like the young superstar will continue his recent solid play in Canada this week. He is 4 under through 14 holes of the second round and just four strokes off the lead. 7:30 a.m.
Retief Goosen 7 under T9 Goosen dropped a few spots down the leaderboard on Friday, but that's because he never got a chance to play. He's still just four shots off the lead with only one round under his belt. 8:20 a.m.
Mike Weir 1 under T80 The sentimental favorite is stuck on the wrong side of the cutline at Glen Abbey having not been able to even begin his second round. He'll need to go low to make it to the weekend. 8:10 a.m.
Friday's Best
EASIEST HOLE TOUGHEST HOLE
The par-5 16th hole was the easiest with a Friday scoring average of 4.481.
EAGLES: 2 BIRDIES: 86 PARS: 57
BOGEYS: 8 OTHERS: 1
The par-4 14th hole was the toughest with a Friday scoring average of 4.318.
EAGLES: 0 BIRDIES: 9 PARS: 96
BOGEYS: 41 OTHERS: 8
Note: These are stats from the first round, which was completed Friday. Round 2 stats unavailable due to its incompletion.
SHOT OF THE DAY ROUND OF THE DAY
Briny Baird had the second hole-ine-one of the day on the par-3 15th. Arjun Atwal had the first, and they bown won BMWs. Watch his shot Baird gets the nod here, too. He is 6 under through 13 holes in Round 2 and had that hole-in-one to boot. Check out his scorecard

INSIDE THE ROPES WITH THE PGA TOUR NETWORK
PGA TOUR Network correspondent Bob Stevens offers these observations from Friday's action. Listen to PGA TOUR Live coverage on XM 146/SIRIUS 209 or right here at PGATOUR.COM.

xmstevens.jpg

I'm still searching for my own first hole-in-one, but I have now witnessed my fourth in three seasons on the PGA TOUR Network. I was following the group containing one of the leaders in the early action of the second round, Martin Laird, when one of his fellow competitors, Arjun Atwal, came out of nowhere to ace the 132-yard, par-3 15th at Glen Abbey. He threw his tee shot just over the flagstick and spun it off the backboard, which set it up to trickle back down the slope and into the cup.

It was the first ace at the 15th in the 25 years that Glen Abbey has hosted the RBC Canadian Open, and it won Atwal a brand new BMW z4 Roadster convertible parked just to the left of the tee. Atwal didn't appear to know he'd won the car until its "keeper" came out and told him. Arjun climbed inside his new ride for a few photos before walking up the hill to pull the ball out of the cup. His wife was following all the action and told me she'd be in charge of the car's future.

Watch out for Scot Martin Laird this weekend. He's made more than a leader's share of bogeys but has dropped almost as many birdies as there have been raindrops at Glen Abbey. Laird's had a fairly miserable year, with only one top-25 finish on the PGA TOUR, but finished in the top 10 at Loch Lomand in the Scottish Open just before the British Open, and Glen Abbey is where his 2008 season took off, with a 22nd-place finish leading to three consecutive top-10s at the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open, the Wyndham Championship and The Barclays. In fact, Laird climbed from well outside the Playoffs picture last year to playing in three of the four tournaments in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup thanks to the kick start at the RBC Canadian Open. He began this week 189th in the FedExCup standings, so now's the time.

Players are going to need two things to be successful this weekend -- a good rainsuit (Saturday's forecast is the bleakest of the week) and an ability to hit fairways. With the wet conditions, you can almost see the rough grow as each day progresses. I watched Anthony Kim, from just five yards off the fairway at the first hole, try to get his ball out of the deep rough, and even with his strength, he was only able to advance the ball about 50 yards. Imagine your ball ending up in the bottom of one of those tableside bowls of Caesar salad that's tossed at your favorite restaurant -- that's how deep, wet and gnarly its getting. With as many birdies as the players who hit the fairways are going to make, playing out of the rough will be particularly penal this week

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