RUSSELL KNOX kept his Barclays Championship hopes alive holing a 15-foot birdie putt on the final green on the second day of the event in Edison, New Jersey.
After a superb opening round that put Knox within a stroke of the lead, the Scot struggled to two over par through 14 holes ahead of his closing hole birdie in a round of a one-over-par 71 for a three-over-par tally on the Plainfield Country Club course.
“A birdie at the last always ensures lunch will taste good and it was nice to see that one drop,” he said.
“My three bogeys were from three three-putts, so that was very frustrating and I will need to work on that aspect of my game this afternoon.
“Fortunately, no one has run away with the tournament and three under par is right up that but the key will be to eliminate those three putts.”
Sweden’s Henrik Stenson (66) shares the clubhouse lead on six under par with 25-year rookie American Tony Finau (69), a towering 6ft 4in player from Salt Lake City with four brothers and two sisters who chose golf over basketball.
It is not lost on Stenson that next week marks the start of the 2016 Ryder Cup qualifying process and with the now 39-year-old looking for a repeat of two years ago when he virtually wrapped up a third European Team cap some nine months before competing at Gleneagles.
In fact, Stenson created golf history becoming the first player to finish No.1 on both the PGA and European Tour’s and also by capturing both season-ending events.
“The start of Ryder Cup qualifying was quite nice for me two years ago as I won the Deutsche Bank Championship and then went onto to win the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup, and then went back to Europe and won the DP World Championship along with the Race To Dubai title,” he said.
“So I wouldn’t mind going to Boston next week and repeating that win and wrapping-up my Ryder Cup selection prior to Christmas like I did two years ago.
“There is a lot of big tournaments still to be played both here in the States and in Europe in coming months, so I have probably seven, eight and maybe nine events to do that so that is the goal as I want to so much qualify automatically for the team without needing a pick from Darren (Clarke).”
Martin Laird will join Stenson and Know in Boston despite the likelihood of missing the Barclays cut by a stroke with scores of 72 and 71 for a three over par total.
Laird will drop to 81st on the FedEx Cup standings but still well inside the top-100 moving forward to next week’s event.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here