Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay set records on Friday but Wyndham Clark and Beau Hossler held the lead at the Zurich Classic.
Defending champions Cantlay and Schauffele, ranked fourth and fifth in the world respectively, combined to shoot a tournament-record foursomes round of nine-under par 63 in the second round of the only PGA Tour pairs event.
“Xander putted great and hit a lot of really nice wedge shots and pitches,” Cantlay said. “Left me three feet and in a couple times and made a bunch of mid-range 15-20 footers, which is exactly what you need to do to shoot nine-under par.”
Americans Clark and Hossler, who opened with a 61 in four-ball [best ball] to share the 18-hole lead, added a 67 to top the leaderboard at 16-under 128, one stroke ahead of compatriots Doc Redman and Sam Ryder and South Korean Im Sung-jae and American Keith Mitchell at TPC of Louisiana in Avondale.
Americans Schauffele and Cantlay were in a fourth-place pack of five duos on 14-under 130 as play finished just before dark after a storm delay of just over two and a half hours.
Schauffele and Cantlay, who won two matches together at last year’s Presidents Cup and the 2021 Ryder Cup, combined for seven birdies and an eagle.
That broke the old 18-hole pairs foursomes record of 65 set by Spain’s Jon Rahm – the top-ranked Masters winner who is off ahead of next week’s PGA Mexico Open title defence – and American Ryan Palmer in 2019 and matched last year by Australians Jason Day and Jason Scrivener and South Africans Branden Grace and Garrick Higgo.
“Xander is really good, and I can play well,” Cantlay said. “It helps that we’re friends, but when you get two world-class players together and we both have a day where we’re on like today, we can post a low one.”
Cantlay and Schauffele, who won last year with a 72-hole record 29-under 259 total, started on the 10th hole Friday with back-to-back birdies.
They followed with birdies at 13 and 16 and eagled the par-five 18th to set a nine-hole tournament foursomes record with a 30 – a mark later matched by Americans Nick Hardy and Davis Riley.
“Pat sent a drive right down the centre, left me 256 yards and hit a hybrid up on the green,” Schauffele said. “He didn’t need any help reading the putt. He just knocked it right in.”
They also birdied the 1st and 2nd holes and added another at the 5th.
Clark and Hossler, also back-nine starters, birdied the par-five 11th and par-four 13th, then the par-five 2nd and par-four 4th. They birdied the par-five 7th after the delay.
© Agence France-Presse
