Dufner dons gotch, grabs lead

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This article was published 26/07/2009 (6209 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OAKVILLE, Ont. — Forget underwear, the 2009 RBC Canadian Open’s second-round leader, Jason Dufner, needs to worry about outerwear at a rain-soaked Glen Abbey Golf Course.

The 32-year-old Dufner — outed in a Tweet by British Open champion Stewart Cink earlier this year for allegedly going “commando” on the course — carded a 9-under 63 on Saturday to finish the second round alone in first place at 13-under par.

“That was false information,” said Dufner of Cink’s revealing report. “It was speculation as to (what) I was going to do that, but it didn’t end up working. It was quite uncomfortable.

“But Stewart’s in the trailer a lot working out, and I’m in the trailer a lot, and everybody gets to talking about what’s going on, and he kind of tweeted that, I guess, I heard through the grapevine. But that was a false rumour.”

Not even a rumour on Saturday was sunshine at the 100th playing of the tournament.

A driving downpour that began as the final few groups completed their second rounds flooded bunkers and sent impromptu streams burbling down fairways, leading officials to reschedule the third round to begin at 5:45 a.m. today.

The PGA Tour also invoked a second cut to get the field to a number nearest to 60, meaning the 12 players who were on the Canadian Open’s record low cut of 3-under 141 will not play the final two rounds.

Dufner’s concern wasn’t about the cut line, but rather his chances at a monumental 59 before he bogeyed the par-4 17th hole.

“I made the putt on 16 and realized I was at (10-under for the round), it enters the back of your mind,” he said. “Obviously I was right in the middle of the fairway on 17, a pretty accessible pin and didn’t hit a good shot.”

The Ohio native played the Nationwide Tour last year and earned his way back to the PGA through Q-School before this season.

“There wasn’t any wind at all,” said Dufner, who has never finished higher than 140th on the PGA’s money list and whose best finish on Tour is a tie for sixth place at the 2007 John Deere Classic.

“Obviously, with as much rain as we’ve had, the conditions are very soft, so the ball’s not chasing out in the fairway, and if you’re inside 170 yards, you can be pretty aggressive at the pins and get a lot of those birdie putts.”

Dufner missed a chance to tie the course record of 62, but only managed a par on the par-5 18th hole.

Jerry Kelly and Scott Verplank fired second-round 67s to finish their first two rounds one shot behind Dufner at 12-under 132.

Two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen of South Africa and Colombian Camillo Villegas headlined a six-way tie for sixth place at 10-under par, one shot behind Peter Tomasulo of the U.S. and Australian Nathan Green tied for fourth at 11-under par.

Mark Calcavecchia set a PGA Tour record with nine birides in a row on Saturday morning en route to a 65 that left him five off the lead.

With his teenaged son Eric serving as caddie, he birdied every hole from the par-3 12th to the par-5 second. Even though that was a new tour record, Calcavecchia, 49, wasn’t feeling particularly confident that his name would stay in the record book very long.

“Could somebody make 10 in a row? Sure,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if some guy whips out 10 birdies in a row sometime this weekend. Really wouldn’t.”

No players began the third round after course superintendent Scott Bowman informed PGA Tour tournament director Steve Carman that the course could not be ready for play by the end of the day.

The big question for the tournament now is whether a Monday finish will be necessary.

— Canwest News Service