SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Scottie Scheffler isn’t going to give up the WM Phoenix Open title without a fight.
The two-time defending champion fired a bogey-free 6-under 66 (with preferred lies in effect once again) in the second round at TPC Scottsdale on Friday to vault into contention, four shots off the pace set by Andrew Novak and Nick Taylor when was suspended due to darkness. (Eighteen players in the morning wave and the entire afternoon wave have yet to complete their round. The second round will resume at 7:30 a.m. MT.)
Asked whether he thinks he can win the title for a third straight time, something only Arnold Palmer has done in the tournament’s illustrious history, Scheffler said, “Yeah, I don’t see why not. Yeah, obviously I’d like to be a little bit closer to the lead, but still, four back out now is not a bad place to be.”
He added: “I probably was just a bit too far away from the hole to make too many birdies, but bogey-free is always good.”
Scheffler earned his first PGA Tour victory at the 2022 WM Phoenix Open in a playoff over Patrick Cantlay and repeated by holding off Taylor and Jon Rahm a year ago. Scheffler opened with 2-under 69 and heads into the weekend at 8-under 134. This marks the 16th time in Scheffler’s last 23 PGA Tour starts that he’s in the top-10 through 36 holes.
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“I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing, plotting along and taking advantage of my opportunities,” he said. “The last two days I really haven’t played the back nine as well as I would like to. I haven’t really taken advantage of some of the scoring holes back there, so I’m looking to improve on that the next couple days.”
Here are four more things to know from the second round of the WM Phoenix Open.
Taylor's 10-stroke difference between rounds 1 and 2
Nick Taylor’s morning went a little better than his afternoon — 10 strokes better — but when he added it up his two rounds were good enough to share the 36-hole lead with Andrew Novak at the WM Phoenix Open with a total of 12-under 130.
Taylor played 30 holes in all at TPC Scottsdale on Friday, completing his first round with eight birdies in his final 12 holes to tie the course record of 11-under 60. (Preferred lies were in effect once again due to muddy conditions.) Thirty minutes later, he teed off on his second round and followed up with a round of 1-under 70.
“It’s weird feeling disappointed after a 70, but this morning was pretty hard to follow up,” said Taylor who gained more than seven strokes on the greens and made 184 feet of putts. “Didn’t hit it great off the tee this afternoon, so I was grinding a little bit early on, but held it together, made some kind of key up-and-downs early on, and it was nice to finish the round under par. But this morning was obviously pretty special to make all those putts and shoot 60.”
Taylor, who resides near the course for half the year when he isn’t in his native Canada, practices often at TPC Scottsdale, and finished runner-up last year at the WM Phoenix Open. In between, Taylor, a three-time Tour champion, won the RBC Canadian Open, and he noted that playing in front of the rowdy crowds at the WM Phoenix Open served him well in becoming the first Canadian to win his home Open in 69 years.
“It’s a bit of a circus out there, and I think last year helped me for the Canadian Open following that, and that no doubt will help me again this year,” he said. “I have a lot of experiences to draw back on.”
Novak the dark horse
Andrew Novak is a third-year Tour pro playing in the WM Phoenix Open for the first time. He had missed the cut at all three of his starts this season but after doing some work with his coach, Scott Rosenthal, he went out and shot a pair of 65s to share the 36-hole lead with Taylor when play was suspended due to darkness on Friday evening.
What did he find with his coach that led to a bogey-free round on Friday afternoon?
“It’s nothing crazy, nothing we’ve never worked on before, but just basically staying over the ball and then rotating through it, keeping it simple, and it makes it a little bit more repeatable,” he explained.
The highlight for Novak in his second round was sticking a 6-iron at the par-3 fourth hole to a foot for a tap-in birdie.
“I thought that was about to be a hole-in-one,” he said. “Obviously, you can’t see from the tee with where that pin was, but I could tell from the reaction of the people behind the green, it was close.”
Novak, who has two top-10 finishes in 63 career Tour starts with a ninth at the 2023 Valero Texas Open as his best career showing, is seeking his first Tour title. His last win was at the 2020 Lecom Suncoast Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour.
“It’s been a while,” he said. “I don’t remember a whole lot from the last time I won. It was a long time ago…I’ll let the fans kind of carry me on and chant my name and hit shots as good as I can, and if I win, I win.”
Thomas and Berger lurking
After a disappointing season a year ago, Justin Thomas has found his mojo. He’s in contention yet again this week after shooting 69-65 to share fifth with Scheffler as he seeks his first win since the 2022 PGA Championship.
On Friday, the key for Thomas, who has posted six consecutive top-25 finishes at the WM Phoenix Open, including a solo third in 2019, was a subtle putter change he made between rounds.
“It was more of a setup thing than anything. I think my hands were getting a little behind it, and Bones mentioned something and it was something my dad saw earlier in the week, too, so just put a little bit more of an emphasis on that and really just tried to get good speed and made some nice ones,” said Thomas, who improved from 99th (-1.06) to seventh (+1.89) in Stroke Gained: Putting from the first to the second round.
“The putter I went back to the second round is my gamer (Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5), the one I’ve used for a long time and had a lot of success with. The one that I used this morning was just the new model of it,” he explained. “I had no intention of using it, but honestly my putter felt so bad the first couple days this week after Pebble last week that I just — I was putting with it, and it felt good. My speed was good with it. I was starting it on line. I went with it. I felt like I had a lot better chance of making putts with that than the other one. I have full faith I would have putted the same with the other putter, but there’s something about using something you’re comfortable with.”
Also lurking is Daniel Berger, who shot 65-69, who is T-9 at 7 under. Berger is mounting his own comeback after an 18-month absence and is making his third start of the season. The 30-year-old Berger, a four-time Tour winner, had been sidelined with a back injury since missing the cut at the 2022 U.S. Open. Berger, who represented Team USA at the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straights in 2021 and was ranked No. 18 in the world before his injury, entered the week at No. 644. He ranked first in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green in the second round (+3.714). To borrow one of Berger’s catchphrases, it’s good to see him straight vibin’ so far this week.
Last call for Hard K
If this is Jim Knous’s final PGA Tour event, he can at least say he made it to one more weekend.
Knous, 34, is 4 under in his second round and inside the cutline at 3 under overall with four holes remaining.
Knous earned his way into the tournament on Monday at Pinnacle Peak Country Club, shooting 7-under 65 and advancing through a 4-for-3 playoff.
But it’s last call because Knous decided it’s time to hang up his golf spikes and is set to begin a new position working at Ping. Knous, who lost a playoff for the 2012 NCAA Division II title, is the most successful player to come out of Colorado School of Mines, which is also where Ping’s vice president of fitting and performance Marty Jertson went to school and he has long taken an interest in Knous, who has played Ping equipment throughout his career.
Knous made his PGA Tour debut at the 2017 WM Phoenix Open. It took seven years after turning pro before Knous earned his Tour card for the 2019 season. In all, he has made 44 Tour starts as well as nearly 100 more on the Korn Ferry Tour in his 11 years as a pro. But the grind of being on the fringes of the pro game also have taken their toll. He failed to get through Q-School this year and decided it was time to put his civil engineering degree to use.
A moment he'll never forget ❤️
Monday qualifier @JimmyHardK holes it from the bunker to move onto the cut line. pic.twitter.com/sJkZIgwINR
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 9, 2024
But first, Knous has his college coach, Tyler Kimble, on the bag at TPC Scottsdale. Wife, Heidi, and the couple’s three kids watched his opening round and father, Jim, and mother, Ellen, were among his supporters walking with him on Friday afternoon. He holed out a bunker shot for birdie at 18, his ninth hole of his second round, and lifted his arms to the sky in delight. Then he birdied his next three holes. Last call may get postponed a little longer if he can finish strong.
“Thanks for the ride,” his father said in an interview with PGA Tour.com.
But Knous knows it is time to do something else after being on the road for 197 nights in 2022.
“I’m very proud of my career, but it’s time to be a dad,” Knous told Monday Q. “I’m just going to enjoy everything about this week, no matter what.”
