Tiger turned around a sport traditionally seen as the preserve of rich white men with sagging paunches, making it fresh and interesting to a whole generation of young people - exactly the kind of young people who play videogames. Not EA Sports' licensed series which carries his name, but the golfer himself - young, handsome, dashing, so multi-ethnic that it'd make your head spin, enormously successful, and as a result, quite astonishingly rich. Ranging in seriousness from the cartoonish, arcade efforts of Sony's Everybody's Golf and Nintendo's Wii Sports through to the detailed simulation of today's subject, EA Sports' Tiger Woods franchise, golf games have ballooned out of their curious cultural niche to become a mainstream form of entertainment. However, the success of said games suggests that there are plenty of people who would disagree with Twain's assertion. Were he alive today, it seems unlikely that he'd be terribly impressed with the steady rise of golfing videogames over the past few years - a development which actually removes all of the walking from the equation entirely. Open defending champion to record an ace in the tournament's 123-year history.Golf, Mark Twain once observed, is a good walk spoiled. The shot of the day came when Matt Fitzpatrick (28) nailed a hole-in-one at the par-3 15, making him the first U.S. Obviously a great way to finish the round and a bit of a reversal of yesterday, where I made that bogey at the last." "I thought it might have hit the hole, which would have been.," said McIlroy, trailing off. World number three McIlroy got hot late and birdied four of his last five holes, including the par-three ninth, where he narrowly missed a hole-in-one to keep his hopes of ending his nearly a decade-long major drought alive. "Fairways are pretty wide out here so you can just bomb it," said Clark, who emerged from a stacked field to win at Quail Hollow last month for his first PGA Tour victory. In the morning wave, Clark drilled a monster 44-foot putt on the par-four 16th before capturing his fourth birdie of the day on his penultimate hole to sign for a second round 67. "Four back wouldn't have been out of this world, but I was just playing too good a golf in my head to let that round get away from me." "It was big, just to keep myself in touch," Schauffele said of his finish. He bounced back, though, to birdie the final two holes and finish with an even par 70. Schauffele shared history with his friend Fowler by carding a 62 of his own on Thursday, but a stretch of three bogeys on the back nine threatened to swing momentum against him. It's going to be a challenge, but I'm definitely looking forward to it."įowler will not rest easy with Clark on his heels, Rory McIlroy (34) and Xander Schauffele (29) two back, Harris English (33) three off the pace and world number one Scottie Scheffler (26) and 2016 champion Dustin Johnson (38) also in pursuit. "It's been a while since I've felt this good in a tournament, let alone a major. "There has been a lot of adversity in the last three years," Fowler said. He proved Thursday's heroics were no fluke when he opened his second round with three straight birdies and managed to get himself out of trouble with superb putting before signing a colourful scorecard that included just four pars.įowler, who had fallen off the golf map in recent years, has thrilled fans with his sensational play this week, leading many to hope the Southern Californian can capture his first major title in LA. "But as you can see, bogeys are very easy to make." "The birdies are out there if you put yourself in the right position," said Fowler, whose 18 birdies through the first 36 holes is a U.S. Open history at the Los Angeles Country Club on Friday with another birdie blitz that saw the fan favourite take a one-shot lead into the weekend.įowler followed up his record-breaking first round 62 with a rollercoaster 68 that mixed eight birdies with six bogeys to sit 10-under par after 36 holes, one clear of fellow American Wyndham Clark (29). Rickie Fowler (34) continued to make U.S.
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