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Stanley charges to the top after two rounds at Barracuda Championship

Golfers prepares to putt on the sixth green during the second round of the Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mountain Club's Old Greenwood Golf Course.
Getty Images | Courtesy of Jed Jacobsohn / Gett

Following a solid round of play to open the Barracuda Championship at Old Greenwood Golf Course, Kyle Stanley charged to the top of the leaderboard with the best second round of any player in the field.

Stanley scored 14 points under the modified Stableford scoring format, and now leads the field by two points with a two-round total of 22 points.

“Yeah, it was good,” said Stanley on the round. “Actually I’m not sure what I shot. It’s kind of weird, the format out here, you’re kind of focusing more on points than you are what your score is. But I had another eagle today which was nice. I had one yesterday. That’s about half of my point total, which was nice. But yeah, I’ve been driving it well. It’s kind of fun with this altitude, you can kind of swing away. We have some shorter par-4s out here so you can make a go at some of those, a little bit of risk-reward, and just kind of kept the ball in front of me and a pretty clean round of golf.”



Stanley eagled the par-5 12th hole, knocked in six birdies, and had three bogeys during the round.

“Yeah, so I pushed my drive a little bit and cut a 5-wood, and it caught the far right side of the green, and then I made a pretty long putt,” said Stanley on his eagle. “I’m not sure how far it was. Yeah, it was nice to — second day in a row with one of those, which is nice. Hopefully I can keep that going.”



Robert Castro, who sits in a tie for 19th place with 14 points, is the only other player with two eagles, thus far.

Stanley, 32, has two PGA Tour wins in his career. He’ll go into the weekend as the 36-hole leader for the sixth time in his career. Stanley sits No. 131 in the FedExCup standings.

“Yeah, time to get going,” said Stanley on the final couple tournaments of the season. “To make the playoffs I’m going to need a good week here, and hopefully I can have a good weekend and get it done.”

Following Stanley are three players tied for second place with 20 points. Austria’s Matthias Schwab is in the hunt following an 11-point round today, giving him a share of second place.

“I’m just happy to be here really,” said Schwab. “I came to the states a few weeks ago and got a few invites, which was great for me, including this week, and then I’m obviously in the PGA next week, so just happy to be here, and yeah, trying to get used to it. It’s not that much different to the European Tour really, but it’s fun being out here, and I enjoy it.”

Robert Streb has never missed a cut at the Barracuda Championship, extending his streak to five in a row today with nine points in the round and 20 for the tournament.

“I guess I hit it pretty well,” said Streb. “Hit a few putts, but I missed some short ones on No. 1 and No. 3. I can’t believe I missed No. 1 after hitting a really good one. I felt like I hit it pretty well, gave myself some chances. Hit a few good pitches here and there and kind of hung around.”

South Africa’s Branden Grace is also tied for second, having scored 10 points in both rounds.

Yesterday’s leaders, Ryan Moore and Adam Schenk fell from the top of the leaderboard. Schenk finished with four points after scoring 14 points yesterday, and now sits in a tie for seventh place. Moore scored two points and now sits in a tie for 14th place with a total of 16 points.

“I just unfortunately put it in a lot of bad places today that I didn’t do yesterday,” said Moore. “I had some really, really hard up-and-downs, borderline impossible, unless you were going to make a 20-footer. I just hit it in a lot of the wrong places today. I knew not to hit it there, but sometimes you just make some bad swings and hit some bad shots. Like I said I was able to salvage something decent out of today, so at least I’ve still got some positive there in the end, and hopefully some good things will happen on the weekend.”

Following today’s round, the field of players was whittled down to the top 62 golfers with the cut being made at six points.

The third round of the tournament will get underway at 9:35 a.m. at Old Greenwood’s par-71, 7,390-yard course.

The winner of the Barracuda Championship earns a spot in the field at next week’s PGA Championship, if not already exempt. The top two players, not otherwise exempt, finishing in the top-10 earn exemptions into 2020 U.S. Open. The Golf Channel is providing coverage of the event.

Justin Scacco is a reporter for the Sierra Sun. Contact him at jscacco@sierrasun.com or 530-550-2643.


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