Gay, Hend Take Different Roads To Share 36-Hole Lead at Senior PGA Championship

Gay Overcomes Unplayable Lie to Share Round 2 Lead

It’s not often a professional golfer has a lost ball and an unplayable ball during a round and still is tied for the lead.

That’s what happened to Brian Gay in Friday’s second round of the Senior PGA Championship at The Concession Golf Club.

LEADERBOARD: Check out the full leaderboard through Round 2 here

He lost a ball on the par-5 17th, leading to a costly double bogey, and had an unplayable on the third hole, where he managed to save par. Not exactly a stroll through the park, even though he shot 68.

“A little volatile,” Gay said. “I butchered a couple of par-5s. Two of them with one bad tee ball, two good tee balls, but other than that, I putted well again. Just a couple of balls in the bushes.”

The double on 17 dropped him to 1-over for his round (he started on the 10th hole), but he responded by striping an iron to 4 feet for birdie on the difficult 18th.

He added two birdies and an eagle on the par-5 seventh to move to 10-under. Gay lives in Orlando and was a Florida Gator golfer, so he’s comfortable putting on Bermuda greens.

What he’s not comfortable with, however, is having lost and unplayable balls. The key for him this week seems obvious.

“I think if I'm in play off the tee, I usually do pretty good,” Gay said. “No penalty shots. I think I should be able to break par if I don't have penalty shots.”

Hend Goes Low to Share Lead

You can say he’s got a hot Hend.

Scott Hend made 14 birdies and an eagle during the first two rounds of the Senior PGA Championship at The Concession Golf Club.

Hend leads the field in birdies through the first two rounds of the year’s first senior major, enabling him to shoot 65 Friday. His secret?

“Hit good tee shots; hole putts. Same (as) everywhere,” Hend said. “Some of the pins you can't really play at, because if you play at it and you miss by a yard, it will roll off to the collection area. I played away from a couple of pins and got fortunate enough to hole a couple of putts, so it was nice.”

Hend’s strategy has worked because he was tied for the lead with Gay at 10-under 134 after Friday’s morning wave.

Asked who he would be keeping an eye on this weekend as the Aussie tries to win his first PGA TOUR Champions title, a major at that, Hend smiled.

“There's 10 guys out there, mate,” he said. “I'm not going to name anyone. You know who they are. I haven't got any majors in my back pockets, so the guys who have majors should be the ones that are favorites.”

Cink, Crane, Goosen Lurking 

Stewart Cink, the tournament favorite. got off to a dream start Friday – opening with three birdies – to charge into contention after a first-round 69. Cink played two under the rest of his round for a 67 that left him two behind the leaders at 8-under 136.

“The only difference really between today and yesterday was today I just holed a few putts,” he said. “Yesterday I just grazed the edges all day. It really was very similar.

“Two bogeys today. Obviously you'd like to clean those up, but all in all it was pretty good golf, and I would take days like today pretty much every day for the rest of my career and be happy. There's going to be some days that yield some low scores on days like this, and there's not going to be too many over-par rounds.”

Cink has won three of his last five starts on the PGA TOUR Champions and has the length to tame The Concession – if, he said, PGA of America officials stretch the course out to its maximum length of 7,500 yards.

“The weekend we're only going to have half the players, and they have an opportunity maybe to squeeze the course a little bit more,” Cink said. “I don't know if they will, but it's out there if they want to.”

Professional golfers need short memories when they play The Concession Golf Club.

No matter how many good shots you hit, there’s going to be some bad ones. How they react to those matters most.

Ben Crane was sailing along Friday at 3-under through his front nine, before things took a turn at the turn. He bogeyed two of the next three holes. But he birdied three of his last six holes to salvage a 69 and is two off the lead.

“You know in every round there's going to be challenges, especially on this golf course,” Crane said. “This golf course sorts out bad shots and good shots pretty quickly.

“One of the things I've really concentrated the most on coming into this week is when I make a mistake, running a correction, which just means,’Okay, if I had done that perfectly, what would I have done?’ So I'm kind of solution-oriented as opposed to problem-oriented because it's so easy to get problem-oriented out here.”

Retief Goosen had on his scrambling shoes Friday. The South African didn’t make a bogey during his 3-under 69, but he could have made a half dozen.

He hit a provisional on one hole, played down the wrong fairway on another, but still moved up the leaderboard into a third-place tie at 8-under 136

“I didn’t play well at all, but I managed to hang in there and not make many mistakes,” Goosen said. “I missed a lot of fairways, and that’s not usually good around a place like this.”

The South African leads the field with just one bogey through the first two rounds, but that’s been the work of his short game, not his usually reliable driver.

“I got it up and down from a lot of places today,” he said. “I’m going to have to drive it a lot better this weekend to have a chance.”

Major logjam at 4-under: Major champions Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els and Zach Johnson each are tied for 12th place at 4-under 140, six shots behind the leaders.

Harrington had the most reason to be frustrated: He double-bogeyed the 18th hole to end a run of three consecutive birdies. His approach to 9 bounced into the water right of the green and he missed a 20-foot bogey putt for a 72.

Els made two late birdies to get under par for the day (71) after opening with a 69 that included three consecutive birdies at 16, 17 and 18.

Johnson birdied five of his last seven holes to offset three consecutive bogeys on his front nine. The 67 moved him inside the top 10 after an opening 73.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!: Eight of the 12 Australians in the Senior PGA Championship made the cut, including co-leader Scott Hend, Steve Allan (T6) and Greg Chalmers (T6).

Daly, Cabrera headed home: Fan favorite John Daly needed to birdie the difficult 18th hole to make the cut, but a par sent him home early after rounds of 74 and 73. The cut came at 2-over 146.

Other notables to miss the cut included former Senior PGA champions Angel Cabrera (2025), Alex Cejka (2021), Ken Tanigawa (2019) and Michael Allen (2009); former major champions Lee Janzen, Darren Clarke and Michael Campbell; and Boo Weekley and Chris DiMarco.