Two PGA Tour major winners are among a group of four players who shot a 4-under-par 68 Friday to finish tied atop the leaderboard after a round of the PGA Tour Champions SAS Championship in Cary, North Carolina.
And none of them finished better than Stewart Cink, who finished with three straight birdies and played the back nine in 4-under 37 at Prestonwood Country Club.
Ireland’s Padraig Harrington hasn’t been as clean as Cink down the stretch, making bogey at the par-4 15th before getting that shot back with a birdie at the par-5 17th. Those two are joined by Chad Campbell and Swede Robert Karlsson in first place, one shot better than a trio of golfers.
The SAS Championship is the final event before the three-event Champions playoffs to determine the winner of the Charles Schwab Cup. The top 72 players in the Charles Schwab Cup points standings after this weekend will advance to the first playoff event, the Dominion Energy Charity Classic next weekend in Richmond, Virginia.
Cink and Harrington combined to win the Open Championship three years in a row, with Harrington winning it in 2007 and 2008 before Cink won it in 2009 in the famous playoff with then-59-year-old Tom Watson.
Echoing the sentiments of most in attendance, Harrington quickly pointed out the course’s biggest challenge: the greens.
“I think they’re as fast as they can be,” said Harrington, seeking his 12th career win as champion. “Yeah, no, these are the fastest greens, I would say as fast as I’ve ever played anywhere, at any stage at any time.”
He added: “The goal today was to hit as many fairways and greens as possible. Obviously, just take the stress out of those 3 or 4 feet with the pace of the greens.”
Putting wasn’t a problem for Cink down the stretch, as he holed a putt on each of his final three holes to make his birdies – twice making the green from the rough. He only needed one putt on five of the final nine holes.
Cink has three career Champions Tour victories, including two this year. Campbell and Karlsson, on the other hand, have yet to win on the Champions Tour. Both were outside the top 50 in the Schwab Cup standings heading into the event.
“It’s the first day, but I’m looking more at the long term,” Karlsson said when asked about his place in the Schwab Cup standings. “You can’t get too caught up in that, it’s all about trying to play as well as you can, every hole, every round.”
German Bernhard Langer, two-time Masters winner, who made a bogey on the par-4 18th, is among the players at 3-under 69. He has an all-time record of 47 Champions victories. Langer is joined at 3 under by Billy Andrade and New Zealander Steven Alker.
–Field level media
