Sergio surges in second round
Photo By Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle
Sergio Garcia is coming full circle?
Garcia's first PGA Tour title came at the Colonial in Fort Worth in 2001, when he bested Phil Mickelson and Brian Gay by two shots. Now, after 36 holes of the Shell Houston Open, he's in the clubhouse with a four-shot lead over Matt Jones, Cameron Tringale and Baytown's Shawn Stefani, who got into the field with a sponsor's exemption.
Garcia shot a seven-under 65 for 132 total. Matt Jones and Cameron Tringale have both posted back-to-back 68s for 8-under 136s, while Stefani chased his first-round 67 with a 69, recovering admirably from consecutive bogeys early on his back nine -- at No. 2 and No. 3 - to stay within striking distance.
Steve Stricker, who remains a loyal SHO regular even though he has significantly cut back on his playing schedule, is another stroke to the rear at 137.
Garcia's play today suggested it was easy out there on the Golf Club of Houston track. He shaved four strokes off par with a birdie-eagle-birdie run on holes 12 through 15 and never faded, completing the second round without a bogey.
But, he protested, 'No, it was tough. Today was very, very windy (requiring) a lot of tricky shots that you had to hit exactly in the right spots, and for the most part I was able to do that. My irons were quite good and then I was able to get up and down a couple times when I missed greens. I rolled in some nice birdie putts. It was very, very nice day to be playing golf. I'm not going to be lying to you. I was thinking when I looked at today I thought, if I'm able to shoot 3-, 4-under, I'll be happy as Larry.'
That's Larry as in Larry Foley, a cheerful 19th-century Australian boxer.
Plagued by long bad patches of poor play no doubt exacerbated by relationship problems - Garcia has gone through public breakups with tennis star Martina Hingis and Greg Norman's daughter, Morgan Leigh-Norman - the now 34-year-old Spaniard has never fulfilled the expectations for him when he won European PGA Tour rookie-of-the-year honors in 1999. He also finished second in the PGA Championship that summer, as good a showing as he has yet managed in any of the majors. His best result at the Masters, where he heads next, was a fourth-place tie in 2004.
But Garcia has played well enough of late, with three top-10s on the U.S. Tour and a title in Qatar, to climb back to No. 8 in the World Golf Rankings top 10 and, if he keeps things rolling in Houston, he'll put himself front and center on the wide-open list of contenders at Augusta National. He protests, however that he's not going to get ahead of himself.
'It's nice to be able to play well,' he said, 'but there's still things that I need to get better at for next week and going forward. Obviously I feel good, but every week is different, you know. First of all, I've got to finish this week.'
Garcia hasn't played Augusta National since last year's Masters, when he tied for eighth. A changed travel schedule that allows him to mostly play three weeks on and three weeks off brought him to Houston for the first time since 2009, when he shot 7-over to tie for 77th, barely finishing in the money.
Erik Compton, the remarkable golfer who undergone two heart transplants, briefly owned a piece of the second-round lead after birdieing two of his first four holes, but bogeys on three of the next four followed. He finished 1-over for the day and, at 5-under, trails Garcia by seven shots.
The co-first-round leaders, Bill Haas and Charley Hoffman, both struggled, too. Losing two strokes to par, he's tied with Compton, among others, at 5-under. Hoffman skied to a four-over 76 to fall nine shots back.
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