Reid plays masterful round for 2-stroke lead
POLK CITY, Iowa (AP) – Mike Reid’s modesty comes through even when he could be boasting. Reid played a masterful round Saturday to take a two-stroke lead heading into the final 18 holes of the Allianz Championship, then talked about how lucky he was to be playing golf.
After a couple of lean years, Reid is going strong in his first full season on the Champions Tour. He won the Senior PGA Championship in stunning fashion a week ago and now is one solid round from a second straight victory.
“I’m just glad to have a job again,” said Reid, a regular on the PGA Tour from 1977-2001. “It’s such a privilege to be doing this. For the last few years, my game kind of lacked definition. It’s just great to be playing again, and to be playing well makes it doubly so.”
Reid put himself in position to win the Allianz with unusual success on the longer holes, which translated into a 5-under-par 66 to match the best round of the day.
Only three days ago, Reid still seemed in a daze over what he had done last Sunday, when he came from three strokes down on the final hole of the Senior PGA to force a playoff, then won it on the first extra hole.
But he sure seems settled down and focused now. His near perfect second round – only one bogey – left him at 7-under 135 for the tournament. When he did hit a bad shot, he’d recover on the next one.
“I knew my game was pretty sound, but I thought that focusing would be a challenge,” Reid said. “Once I got a couple of holes under way on Friday, I started to feel like my mind wasn’t wandering. In a way it’s good, because this golf course forces you to play attention.”
Bob Gilder, who changed his putting grip just before the round, matched Reid’s 66 to pull into contention at 5 under along with Morris Hatalsky (67), Bruce Fleisher (70) and first-round co-leader Tom Jenkins (72).
Gil Morgan and defending champion D.A. Weibring were at 4-under after shooting 67s.
Reid is known as “Radar” because of his accuracy, but he isn’t a long hitter off the tee. However, he was sensational on the four par-5s at the Tournament Club of Iowa, making birdie on three of them and an eagle on the other.
“I took advantage of them today and played the rest of the golf course well enough,” Reid said.
So how often does he handle par 5s like that?
“It’s rare,” Reid conceded.
Reid got his eagle on 13 by knocking a 5-wood to 3 feet and then rolling in the putt to go to 6 under. He had to scramble a little for his final birdie, two-putting from the back of the green on 17.
“I thought if I could shoot a 67, I could move up,” said Reid, who started the day four strokes off the lead. “I’m very happy with that score.”
An overnight rain softened the course and the round began under thick, gray clouds and the threat of a thunderstorm. But no more rain fell and the clouds moved out, though the wind kept up throughout the day.
Gilder got so frustrated with his putting during an up-and-down first round – five birdies, five bogeys – that he changed his grip from cross-handed to a claw, in which a golfer turns his right hand down to guide the club.
He made an 8-footer for birdie the first time he putted Saturday and later had two 15-footers for birdie and a 12-footer. Just as satisfying, Gilder had only one bogey.
“My experience with cross-handed has been very up and down,” he said. “It can change from one putt to the next. It can change from one hole to the next. It can change from one day to the next and I’ve never ever been very comfortable.
“So I went to the putting green last night and put the claw on it a little bit to see how it worked today.”
So far, so good, though Gilder would have liked another chance at his birdie putt on 17. Looking at a 10-footer that would have given him a share of the lead at the time, Gilder left it a foot short.
“That was the worst putt of the day right there,” he said. “I moved on the putt. It wasn’t a nervous thing. I just hit it bad.”
Hatalsky, who has seven top-10 finishes in his last eight tournaments, played a bogey-free round after a horrible finish on Friday – a double-bogey on No. 18. He shook it off quickly, two-putting from 60 feet for a birdie on the first hole.
“You’ve got to clear your mind and not let those kind of things bother you,” Hatalsky said “I talked with my wife last night and she just said, well, make some more birdies tomorrow.”
Jenkins, the runner-up in this tournament last year, was 5 under after just seven holes on Friday. But he bogeyed his third hole Saturday and was never better than even par for the round.
Mike Sullivan, who had shared the first-round lead with Jenkins, slipped to a 76 and was 1-under for the tournament.