Henley staying around the top of the leaderboard with more career-best steady play
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
The perceived lack of sleep and increase in stress after welcoming another baby to the fold isn’t having any impact on Russell Henley.
Nine weeks after welcoming the third Henley baby, the 33-year-old is amid a second straight solid and consistent tournament and one of the best runs of rounds his pro career.
Henley is among a big group of players within two shots of the lead at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
Saturday’s round was stopped because of weather at 4:15 p.m., and the outlook initially wasn’t too good. It was announced at 6 p.m. that play would resume at 6:40 p.m., only for reality to overcome wishful thinking, as weather returned and play was done for the day a few minutes later.
A dozen players had already finished and eight more had gone through 17 holes. Action resumes Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. Here’s the leaderboard.
Henley is on target, with another similar tournament, to enter the FedEx Cup playoffs in the top 30. That would put him in good shape towards reaching the season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. He was 44th last year entering the playoffs, finishing tied for 56th and tied for 60th in the two playoff tournaments he qualified for.
The 10th-year pro went 46 straight holes last week without a bogey, and then had five in the final round and half to finish tied for 10th.
He kept it going Saturday, opening with a birdie to jump into a tie for first at 9-under, where he stayed until the sixth when he couldn’t match Sungjae Im’s birdie, and dropped one back into a tie for second. He never got back into sharing the lead, but remained among 10 players at 10-under or better.
His eagle shot of 35 feet on No. 5 for the lead was just right and a little strong, but he birdied the par 5 and broke into sharing the lead only with Im at 10-under through five with three one back and five two back.
Henley had chances to take the lead, but stayed somewhat conservative or barely missed, and it paid off with pars and birdies and he stayed around the top.
The leaderboard stay crammed with nobody forging ahead or falling behind.
Im and Brandon Wu are tied for first, with John Huh and Joohyung tied for third. At one point, just after the turn, eight were tied for third at 10-under.
Wu jumped into the top group with an eagle on 11, just before the horn blew, indicating weather had arrived and golf was over for awhile.
The second delay of the day – the first lasted a bit more than an hour - started at 4:18 p.m., and Henley had knocked out 47 straight holes with a bogey when play stopped, just having parred No. 11 for the second straight day after a first-round birdie.