Champions Tour, SAS Championship,Funk and Pate tied at the Top
Fred Funk and Steve Pate are still tied at the top of the leaderboard in the SAS Championship at Prestonwood Country Club, Cary, North Carolina after the second round. Both players have had identical scores for the first two rounds of 67 and 69 for totals of -8 under par.
Fred Funk a seven time Champions Tour winner will battle against Steve Pate, in the final round tomorrow. Steve Pate is unfortunately winless in his previous 34 starts on the Champions Tour, and will be concentrating hard to get his first win.
Fred admitted he did not play too well to begin with today;
“Well, it wasn’t a very easy round, the first part, I was really struggling with my whole game and managed to shoot 1 over on the front. I kept working on my swing, trying to figure something out. And I really never could figure anything out, and I tried a couple different swing keys. And all of a sudden, I started hitting it really close and hitting it really solid. I hit it really good; hit some irons really good.”
Steve said nothing was easy today;
” Friday was really easy. I hit everything on line. Saturday, I hit nothing on line, there was nothing easy about it, but I only made one bogey, so that was good. I mean, that could have easily gone sideways pretty quickly, and it didn’t, so that was nice.”
Jay Don Blake and Andrew Magee are just one stroke back, while 65-year-old Larry Nelson had the round of the day, a -6 under par 66, and he leads a quartet of players who are just two back. Larry Nelson’s second round 66 matched Mark McNulty, Mark O’Meara and Mark Wiebe for total tournament score of – 6 under par. McNulty had a 68, and O’Meara and Wiebe shot 69. 65 year-old Larry said he was conscious about trying to shoot his age;
“It’s just kind of a personal thing, so I guess that’s probably a good thing to focus on, the tournament is secondary at that point. Now Sunday, the tournament might be a little more better or a little bit more of a priority than it was today.”
