Charl Schwartzel heads into the weekend at the Honda Classic inside the top 10 to provide some good news for South African interests at PGA National.
Louis Oosthuizen and Erik van Rooyen were among the big names to find the going extremely tough around the infamous layout. Both will head home after Van Rooyen’s consecutive 74s with Oosthuizen one back after a 75 on Friday.
A scrambling 69 helped Dylan Frittelli into the weekend at +3 but he is well off the pace set by Brendan Steele, who leads alone at -5. Frittelli survived a late double-bogey and produced a very good round despite finding just eight greens in regulation.
Schwartzel fought a wayward tee game and the struggles that followed from playing out of position to card a second 69. The former Masters champ hit six of 14 fairways and then just 50% of the greens in regulation on Friday but stayed in the fight thanks to a red-hot putter.
Schwartzel did not miss a putt within 10 feet all day to put himself into a share of ninth and just three back.
