A blustery wind blew away everything but Matthew NeSmith’s one-shot lead Friday at the 3M Open.
Everything, that is, until Canadian golfer Taylor Pendrith came from behind with a seven-birdie, no-bogey 7-under par 64 round — giving him a two-shot lead entering Saturday’s third round in Blaine.
Pendrith followed his Thursday 66 with a round two shots better after NeSmith’s own 64 had stayed atop the leaderboard by a single stroke most of the afternoon. That lasted until Pendrith birdied No. 15, 16 and 18 to give him the lead halfway through the 72-hole tournament.
Pendrith tied for fifth last week at the Barracuda Championship near Lake Tahoe after tying for 16th last month at the U.S. Open in Pinehurst, N.C.
He won his first PGA Tour title in May, the Byron Nelson in Texas. In 2022, he had made the International President’s Cup team.
All of that might be something he can call upon as the pressure to win, and win FedEx Cup points, mounts the next two days.
“Getting my first win was a huge boost of confidence,” said Pendrith, born and raised in Ontario. “I felt like I’d been playing some really nice golf, so to finally get that down felt awesome. Hopefully I can draw on those experiences the next two days and be in contention on Sunday. That would be great and have a chance to win.”
He has not made a bogey on a watery, windy course where Sam Burns, ranked 30th in the world, made a snowman 8 — a quadruple bogey — Thursday on TPC Twin Cities’ short par-4 seventh hole. On Friday, Burns made nine birdies, shot 65 and is tied for ninth with nine players, including Matt Kuchar, Gary Woodland, Stewart Cink and Sahith Theegala.
Tony Finau made two birdies, two bogeys and an eagle 3 on the par-5 6th, all of it in his first six holes Friday.
And then there was Hayden Buckley, who followed a wacky double-bogey 6 at the 16th hole Friday that made a long day even longer. Then he made a one-bounce hole-in-one on the next, a par-3 17th.
Buckley drove the ball left of the 16th fairway, in long grass near the water hazard’s edge. Afterward, he said he should have chipped the ball out of trouble because he didn’t really have a shot. His caddie asked if a red stake defining the hazard was in his way. He hit the stake with his shot and it ricocheted into the water.
“I said there’s no chance it’s in the way,” Buckley said. “It was a good 10 feet left of my ball. It came out low and left and hit the stake. At that point, I was like, all right, I’m ready to book a flight out of here.”
Buckley and his group waited 20 minutes on the next tee box to hit. That next shot traveled 175 yards, right into the hole.
He once made a hole-in-one at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Florida and missed the cut anyway. He did the same thing Friday, missing the cut tied for 133rd place at 5-over par after shooting 76 on Friday.
“I need to figure out this hole-in-one and make-the-cut thing,” Buckley said. “Weird things happen in this game. It gave me something to smile at heading home. Overall, it was a terrible day, but at least I made a ‘1′ to break 80 and got a little memory to look back on.”
Also missing the minus-2 cut line: Fargo’s Tom Hoge; Gophers golfers Erik van Rooyen and Ben Warian; Spring Lake Park native Troy Merritt; tour vet Brandt Snedeker; rising star Nick Dunlap and Minnesota PGA Section Player of the Year Jeff Sorenson.
There’s a consolation prize for van Rooyen: He’s headed to Paris to play for South Africa next weekend in the Olympics.
