Hall leads Colonial by three
England’s Harry Hall shot four under par at halftime on Friday in the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas to take a three-shot lead.
Hall, ranked No. 197 in the world and chasing his first win on the PGA Tour, bounced back from a shaky start, posting a string of birdies at Fort Worth’s Colonial Country Club and starting the weekend 12-under.
The 25-year-old from Cornwall took the lead in the first round on Thursday after a clean eight-under-par game.
Teeing off to the back nine on Friday, Hall bogeyed his fourth hole of the day, but then birdied five of his next six holes to get his round back on track.
Though a third-round bogey dropped him to three unders for the round, he coolly rolled an 11-foot birdie en route to his four-under in the seventh round.
“I don’t think I played my best golf this year on the PGA Tour, and I think this week is,” Hall said.
“Hopefully I can continue like this for the next two days.”
Harris English leads Hall’s chase after matching the Englishman’s four-under par of 66, leaving him at nine-under, three points off the lead.
The culmination of a bogey-free round for English was a brilliant ace on the par 3 where his nine-iron off the tee landed on the green and rolled into the hole.
“It worked out exactly how I wanted it to and luckily went in the hole,” said English.
“As long as I continue to hit the ball and keep giving myself chances, some good things are going to happen this weekend.”
Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo was another down at eight-under after a five-under par 65, while three players – Adam Schenk, Robby Shelton and South Korean An Byeong-hun – were off the lead at seven-under-five.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is also in the hunt after scoring 67 points for the second year in a row. Scheffler was tied for seventh with Andre Novak at six under.
“Obviously I wish I was a little higher up the leaderboard, but I feel like my game is at a really good level, so I’m excited for the next few days,” said Scheffler.
But while Scheffler was thinking about the weekend, golf cult hero Michael Block was brought back to earth by a blow.
Club pro Block wowed the crowd at last week’s PGA Championship by securing 15th place.
However, the 46-year-old ended up in last place and missed the cut on Friday, having scored 74 points in the second round and was down just 15 points after 81 points in the first round.
Block had no regrets from this tumultuous week, however, and was looking forward to going home to play messy with his Labrador.
“He’s waiting for me,” Block said. “I haven’t seen him in almost two weeks and I can’t wait to get home and play ball with him.”
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