Quade Cummins supplants overnight 18-hole leaders, takes outright 36-hole lead at Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation

COLLEGE GROVE, Tennessee – Following the conclusion of a bogey-free 8-under 64 Friday morning, Quade Cummins fired a 4-under 68 in the second round and maintained his place atop the leaderboard at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation. At 12-under par for the tournament, Cummins held a two-stroke lead over Brent Grant when the second round was suspended due to darkness at 7:40 p.m.

Friday also saw play suspended for 88 minutes (from 1:32 p.m. through 3 p.m.) due to lightning. A total of 51 players had holes remaining, with the 36-hole cut still to be determined, upon suspension of play at day’s end.

Cummins entered the day at 7-under par with four holes remaining in his first round. The 26-year-old birdied two of his first three holes Thursday (Nos. 10 and 12) and rattled off five in a row from Nos. 18-4 prior to the first round’s suspension due to darkness. Cummins birdied the par-5 seventh, posted a 64 and tied the 18-hole tournament course record for a share of the 18-hole lead, and headed back out for the second round.

The Weatherford, Oklahoma native carded five birdies and one bogey in his second round at The Grove. Cummins opened with a birdie at the par-4 first, followed by two more at the par-4 fourth and ninth. On the back nine, Cummins made his first bogey of the week at the par-4 12th, but countered it with back-to-back birdies at the par-4 17th and par-5 18th.

“I started my round off with a birdie and I haven't really even been close to being over par,” Cummins said. “It’s always fun to go throughout your round not worrying about hitting bad shots or making bogeys. It's been really fun two days. I feel like I've taken advantage of most of the holes. I've let some par 5s get away, and that's going to happen every now and then, but I've played really solid the first two days."

Cummins turned professional in June 2021 after six seasons at University of Oklahoma (2015-21), where he was a 2019-20 All-America First Team selection and a 2021 All-America Third Team honoree. Cummins finished No. 6 in the inaugural PGA TOUR University presented by Velocity Global Class of 2021, good enough for PGA TOUR Canada status and an exemption to Second Stage of the 2021 Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament.

The top five players in the Class of 2021 earned Korn Ferry Tour status and an exemption into Final Stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament, while Cummins and the other players who finished Nos. 6-15 earned PGA TOUR Canada status and an exemption into Second Stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament.

Cummins played in seven PGA TOUR Canada events, making five cuts and posting two top-10s. The next stop was Second Stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Cummins finished birdie-par and qualified for Final Stage on the number. A T127 at Final Stage, however, left Cummins without guaranteed starts for the 2022 season.

A successful Monday qualifier for The Panama Championship in late January became a turning point in Cummins’ season. A T15 in Panama, which earned him another start the following week, combined with a T54 at the Astara Golf Championship presented by Mastercard sent him soaring up the priority ranking once the four-event reshuffle took effect a week later.

"It's crazy that it worked out like that,” Cummins said. “Going to Panama, knowing that this is your one shot, you don't know if you'll get another one, and being able to produce and top-25 to get into the next tournament helped my confidence a lot. When you're not playing in tournaments, you don't know if you have a full year ahead of you, and you don't know what you're playing in and that can be tough."

Cummins has made four starts since the February reshuffle, with the highlight being a career-high T4 finish at last week’s Huntsville Championship.

“This is by far the best I've played,” Cummins said. “It’s always fun to see yourself do things that you haven't done before. Then last week, I couldn't tell you the last time I played in the second-to-last group or final group, and it just felt like it came back natural. It felt like I was supposed to be there and it felt comfortable."

The second round will resume at 6:45 a.m. Third-round tee times will run in groups of three off the first and 10th tees, with the final group going off No. 1 at 12 p.m.