Bill Glasson is four strokes ahead of everybody going into the final round of the inaugural Pacific Links Hawaii Championship, and determined to ignore it.
His focus today at breezy Kapolei Golf Course is on "winning the war" with his driver and forgetting how long it has been since he won a golf tournament.
For the record, Glasson has not won in nearly 15 years — a streak of 248 PGA, Champions and Web.com tour events. Last year was the 52-year-old’s first full season on the senior tour. He has $1.2 million to show for it, including a pair of third-place finishes.
PACIFIC LINKS HAWAII CHAMPIONSHIP
SECOND-ROUND
Leaderboard
Bill Glasson |
66-65 |
— |
131 |
Mark McNulty |
67-68 |
— |
135 |
Peter Senior |
65-70 |
— |
135 |
David Frost |
69-67 |
— |
136 |
Corey Pavin |
69-67 |
— |
136 |
Willie Wood |
68-68 |
— |
136 |
|
The self-deprecating Glasson didn’t know if he could even make a birdie at Kapolei, let alone contend, until Friday. Then he tied his low round of the year with a 66 and followed up with 65 Saturday. He is four ahead of Mark McNulty (68) and first-round leader Peter Senior (70).
"I’m shocked," Glasson said. "I hadn’t had a birdie all week until Friday. Honest. I played Tuesday and played a pro-am. My poor amateur team. I didn’t have a birdie all week until I got on the golf course Friday. I didn’t know it was possible.
"To be where I am is beyond my expectations, that’s for sure."
He has 12 birdies, an eagle and a lone bogey in two days. Glasson has missed half the fairways, but is ranked first in greens in regulation, missing just five.
"I’ve spent a lot of time working on ball-striking," he says. "With the winds the way they are, you can just lose a ball by not hitting it solidly.
"My iron play has been very solid and my driving has been terrible. That’s the great equalizer right now. … Where I’ve been driving it is going to catch up with me if I don’t get the club straightened out between today and tomorrow."
Eighty guys would love to be in his predicament.
McNulty, a South African who turns 60 next year, overcame a double bogey to slide into second with Senior, who is also searching for his first Champions win.
David Frost birdied four of the last five to shoot 67 and climb into fourth with Corey Pavin (67) and Willie Wood (68), another shot back.
Mark O’Meara (67) shares seventh with Dick Mast (68) at 137. Eight of O’Meara’s 11 rounds since coming off a rib injury have now been in the 60s.
Tom Lehman, the 2011 Player of the Year, is searching for his first 2012 win and is also in the top 10 with Jay Don Blake and Andrew Magee.
But for what Pavin called a "hiccup," he would be alone in second. He collected five birdies and a chip-in eagle, but gave two back with a freak "shot" on the ninth.
Taking a practice birdie putt from the fringe, Pavin accidentally struck his ball and moved it about a foot. Shaken, he figured it counted as a stroke and struck the ball again, finishing with bogey.
A rules official came up to him minutes later to let him know that, because he struck the first putt inadvertently, he should have replaced it.
That cost him a penalty shot and transformed bogey into double-bogey, the only blotch on a brilliant scorecard for the two-time Hawaiian Open winner.
"It would have been smarter for me to call for a ruling," said Pavin, who had never "tipped" a ball in competition before. "But nobody in our group even thought about it. I didn’t think about it. I just putted.
"It is what it is. I can’t do anything about it, so there’s no use dwelling on it and beating myself up. At this point in my life I can do that. When I was like 23 I’d have been angry. I’m certainly not happy about it, but it’s no reason to screw up the rest of the day."
His lesson in resiliency paid off in two "bomb" birdie putts from 40 feet on the back nine, along with the eagle.
Pavin, 52, didn’t win on the senior tour until the beginning of this year. Glasson now hopes it is his turn, but mostly he is worried about hitting his driver, though he admitted that might not be a bad thing.
"When you are a little off it makes you think harder, keeps you in the game," Glasson said. "For me, I tend to get bored or lose my focus, so sometimes being a little off is advantageous for someone with attention deficit."