Turning Stone Championship round two: 'Careful what you wish for'

Memo to Atunyote golf course staff: stop watering the greens. The golfers are not going to straight out admit it, but in a roundabout way they have let the cat out of the bag - the greens are being a little too generous.

Atunyote is a pretty generous course all round, what with fairways as wide as aircraft carriers. The men who run the course have also been hoist by their own petard in their attempt to outsmart the bombers. They have succeeded to an extent by lengthening it, but in doing so have made things a whole lot easier for the second tier drivers, those who come in just under the 300-yard mark. Steve Flesch gave the game away when he noted that the longer distances had put the fairway bunkers out of reach of the vast majority off the tee. “You’ve got to be careful what you wish for there.”

An idea of how relatively easy Atunyote is playing comes with the fact that only one other PGA event this year has recorded a lower cut than this week’s 4 under, and that was the Wyndham last month.

The “Reno-Tahoe gang” continue to prosper, with Flesch holding a one-stroke lead and Brendon de Jonge and Charles Warren in close attendance. I’m kicking myself over de Jonge because my stats were clear that other than a weakness in hitting greens he was one of the leading lights, but I didn’t believe them. He is currently being outshone anyway by another rookie, Matt Hendrix, whose showing the best all-round game: top 10 for everything except greens in regulation where he comes 28th. Although Flesch is top for hitting greens, plenty of his challengers have proved less handy with their irons. The story painted so far by the stats is that as long as you don’t disgrace yourself on the way to the greens a dialled-in flat stick is what is going to win the day.

Waiting in the wings are a few players of note, principally Carl Pettersson, who has decided to find some form this week, and Stuart Appleby finding his feet six shots off the lead. With scores going as low as 8 under that’s nothing with moving day upon us. A stronger gusty wind might be a complicating factor Saturday, though.