Shell Houston Open. Cink and Hass Tied at Top

Stewart Cink and Bill Hass are tied at the top of the leaderboard in the Shell Houston Open, at the Redstone Golf Club in Texas.

Stewart Cink & Bill Hass / Halleran / Getty Images

 Bill Hass and Stewart Cink lead the competition by just one shot at -11 under par for the tournament. Stewart shot a -4 under par round of 68, while Bill Hass went one shot better at -5 under par 68 to tie at the top.

Stewart is fired up for the duel tomorrow, stating that he can’t wait;

” Tomorrow is a great learning opportunity for me to get out there and be nervous and perform and try to stay in the moment and let it happen, I can’t wait.”

Bill, was a co-leader after 36 holes at Bay Hill last week, today he made seven birdies over his last 13 holes to catch Stewart. Bill is under no illusions about how tough it is going to be tomorrow, there are 20 players separated by just four shots on a course where birdies are available, but the slightest miss could prove to be the unraveling of a good score;

” Tomorrow you’re going to have to play very well, you can’t just hang on and hope everybody else will fall back.”

Steve Wheatcroft was tied for the lead when he shanked a shot from the greenside bunker on the 18th, the ball coming out at a 45 degree angle, missing the green completely. Steve said of that bunker shot;

“If you don’t catch it perfectly, it runs across the green into the water, I opened the club face just trying to hit a high soft one and obviously I missed most of the club face.”

Steve is one of four players just one shot back, they are; Ben Crane, D.A. Points and Jason Kokrak, all of them at -10 under par.

The list of players at -9 under par is even longer, nine players to be exact, it is going to be exciting to watch this shoot-out tomorrow.

Humana Challenge, Scott is Not Stalling

Scott Stallings / Getty Images

Scott Stallings took a stranglehold on the Humana Challenge with his third round -9 under par, 63, which now gives him a five shot cushion over the field.

There are five players tied in second place at -17 under par, they are, Roberto Castro, Stewart Cink, Chucky three Sticks, John Rollings and the blond bombshell Charley Hoffman. There are a further eight contestants another shot back at -16 under par, but barring a calamity this title belongs to Scott Stallings.

Scott spoke about his aggressive approach to this tournament;

“I stayed aggressive, playing with John Rollins was a huge help. He’s a good guy and he was an easy guy to club off of. We made a lot of birdies the last couple days, and so we kind of fed off each other. I guess you can say it’s conservatively aggressive, like No. 8.  I hit a really good drive and had 8-iron. But just because I had 8-iron to a par 5, I fired it in the middle of the green, had a 20-footer and was happy to make it. I’ve been smart when I got out of position.”

Roberto had shared the lead after each of the first two rounds, but felt he was a little out of rhythm today;

” I got a little out of rhythm on the back, but still hit enough good shots to feel good about it.”

Anyone who wants to take this title has to out play Scott Stallings, and he is in no mood to let things slip from this healthy position.

Wells Fargo Championship, 3rd round @ Quail Hollow

Webb Simpson leads the Wells Fargo Championship after the third round at Quail Hollow. Webb had a round of -3 under par 69 and leads the field by just one shot. Following close behind are Ryan Moore, who had a -4 under par round of 68, and D.A. Points finished with a -3 under par 69, both players have a tournament total of -13 under par.

Nick Watney had a bogey on the last hole after a wayward drive which incurred a penalty stroke. That mistake put him back to a total of -12 under par. On the same tournament total is Rory McIlroy, who really shined on course today with a round of -6 under par 66. Rickie Fowler and Stewart Cink are a further shot back on -11 under par. Rickie also finds himself in very good form and is still looking for his first PGA Tour win.

Rory is playing extremely well, and the boys at the top will be looking anxiously back over their shoulders tomorrow, to see if he is making a Sunday charge at the title. He needs to finish high up the leaderboard at this tournament to regain the number one spot from Luke Donald. Luke did not play this week and expects Rory to leapfrog him in the rankings this week.

Wells Fargo Championship @ Quail Hollow

                                                                            

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Nick Watney leads after the 2nd round of the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow after shooting a marvelous round of -8 under par 64. He leads by just one shot from Webb Simpson who had a -4 under par round of 68. There are a few players who are another shot back at -10 under par for the tournament, they are;

Stewart Cink, Ben Crane, D.A. Points and Australian John Senden.

Among those who scraped through on the cut line of -1 under par were Phil Mickleson, who had an even round today, and Lee Westwood who also had an even round. Lee seems to make it a habit of starting slowly and finishing strongly, but both he and Phil have a long road ahead of them if they intend to contest the Championship on Sunday afternoon.

Notables missing the cut at even par include;

Angel Cabrera, Henrik Stenson, Mike Weir, Trevor Immelman,  Biggest name of all is that of Tiger Woods.

 Lecka/Getty Images

  Tiger is struggling to make Sean Foley’s swing work and  is still attempting to erase the muscle memory of the one he cultivated with Hank Haney. I personally think the major problem is that he is missing the camaraderie and unquestionably great advice and reading of the game of Steve Williams. Sadly for Tiger and his legions of supporters that will never return, Tiger has to find another way of getting the job done. Tiger said after his unexpected exit;

“It all has to do with my setup. If I get over the golf ball and I feel uncomfortable, I hit it great. It’s just that I get out there and I want to get comfortable, and I follow my old stuff, and I hit it awful. All the shots I got uncomfortable on, I just said, ‘I’m going to get really uncomfortable and make it feel as bad as it possibly could,’ I striped it. I know what I need to do, it’s just I need more reps doing it.”

Tiger also rued missing out on the par 5′s;

“You just can’t do that, especially when all of them are reachable with irons. I didn’t take care of the par 5s, missed a couple other little short ones for birdie, and consequently got no momentum during the round.”

Playing partner today,Geoff Ogilvy commented

“He wouldn’t be out of the tournament if he’d made putts. If he holed putts, he’d be in contention ‘

Tiger’s day could have been even worse than it was, he benefited from some help from the gallery, the report goes like this,

“One gentleman specifically, an older gentleman, told me, I saw the ball hit right here, I saw it bounce, it didn’t look like it was going far, and then I saw several people come around and get around the ball where it was going, and the ball was vanished. Listen, I’m thinking all the time, if you can’t find the ball, the ball is lost. But based on the evidence we had, somebody must have picked the ball up the way I see it.”

Tiger was philosophical about the incident;

“A gentleman saw the ball land and roll, and another gentleman verified he saw the same thing. There were about five or six people that ran over to the ball, and the next thing you know we get down there and there’s hundreds of people and no ball. You saw an area there, there’s really nothing there. We looked around for a while, and then Mark came over there and analyzed the situation and what was going on. We gave him all the information. The two gentlemen participated in the conversation, and we dropped it as close as we could to where they thought it was picked up. So that was it.”

Others missing the cut were, Danny Lee at +2 over par, a disappointment for all Kiwi’s who thought after his first round he would make the cut here. Vijay Singh at +1 and Reteif Goosen with a sad second round of 75, leaving him out of the tournament at +3 over par. Keegan Bradley also missed due to a second round 76.

Wells Fargo Championship, @ Quail Hollow, 1st round, three tied at top

                                                         

The first round of the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow finished with three players tied at the top. The big guns of  Woods, McIlroy and Mickleson failed to mount a serious charge at the top spot. The leaders are,

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Stewart Cink, Webb Simpson and Ryan Moore, who shot rounds of 65 to finish the day at -7 under par. One shot behind them are a group of  good players all hoping to mount a charge tomorrow. They are; Rickie Fowler, John Senden, D.A. Points, Brian Davis and Patrick Reed, all comfortably home in 66 for a tournament total of -6 under par.

Ryan said afterwards;

“It was really a good, solid round all day long. I just had a great finish. I hit it where I was trying to hit it all day long and made some good putts early in the round and made some great par savers on my first nine to kind of keep my momentum going. I played solid right into my back side and just had a great finish.”

Webb Simpson commented;

“ I felt like it was going to be a good day and just kind of kept on going and made some putts on the back.”

Rickie Fowler was happy with his first round;

 ”I’ve played well here, had one good finish here along with another one that was okay, and then, yeah, a course that I like. I enjoy playing here. It’s usually in great shape, and looks like we’re going to have warm but good weather for the week.”

First of the big guns home was Rory McIlroy with -2 under par 70 and tied for 39th place. Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood  and Tiger Woods, all had rounds of -1 under par 71′s, tied for 56th.

These guys will have to step up to the plate tomorrow and shoots some low rounds, or they could find themselves too far behind to seriously challenge for the title.