Jimmy Walker left the booming, highlight-reel drives to his playing partner. A low score was good enough for him.
Walker shot an 8-under 62 on Friday to take the lead at 12-under 128 after two rounds in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
Defending champion Webb Simpson (63) was one stroke back. First-round leader Carl Pettersson (68), Tim Clark (67), Sergio Garcia (63) and rookie Harris English (64) were at 10 under.
Tim Herron matched the tournament record with a 61 but was nine strokes behind.
Play was halted for 1 hour, 17 minutes late in the day when a system of thunderstorms passed through central North Carolina.
Walker, who began the day four strokes back, had eight birdies in compiling one of the best two-day scores in event history. Only Pettersson at 125 in 2008 was better than Walker through 36 holes at Sedgefield Country Club.
“I was playing with J.B. (Holmes), and he was bombing the driver everywhere, and I was just kind of bunting the 5-wood around and hitting good approach shots,” Walker said. “It was pretty boring-looking golf — not a lot of drivers, not a lot of 3-woods. There’s a lot of 5-woods and some irons, and it’s just kind of placement around the golf course.”
Walker hopes he’s getting back to his form from earlier this year, when he finished in the top 10 in three of his first six tournaments.
A knee injury kept him out of the U.S. Open. Now that he can bend down and read greens again, he can do some damage with his putter. He used it just 26 times Friday, and didn’t even need it on No. 2 because he chipped in from 50 feet.
“If it wouldn’t have gone in, it probably would have rolled over the back of the green,” he said.
LPGA IN OREGON
Mika Miyazato and Sydnee Michaels shot 7-under 65 in 100-degree heat to share the first-round lead in the LPGA Tour’s Safeway Classic in North Plains, Ore., a suburb northwest of Portland.
Miyazato and Michaels each had eight birdies and a bogey on Pumpkin Ridge’s Ghost Creek Course.
Cristie Kerr, Inbee Park and Pornanong Phatlum were a shot back. So Yeon Ryu (67), the Toledo Classic winner last week, was two shots back.
RAIN COOLS LANGER
Bernhard Langer topped the leaderboard at 7 under when first-round play in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open was suspended because of rain in Endicott, N.Y. Langer was facing an 8-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole when play was stopped at En-Joie Golf Course.
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