Laird leads by four at Athens Regional Foundation Classic  PGA TOUR Staff BOGART, Ga. -- With a 5-under-par 67 Friday, Martin Laird moved to 11 under par and holds a four-stroke second-round lead over Miguel Carballo and Nicholas Thompson at the $500,000 Athens Regional Foundation Classic, the seventh of 32 events on the 2007 Nationwide Tour schedule.  After two rounds, Martin Laird tops the charts in greens in regulation and birdies. (Kevin C. Cox/WireImage)
Laird, playing his second full season on the Nationwide Tour, fired the only bogey-free round on Friday. He made eight cuts in 19 events on the Nationwide Tour in 2005. He played on the Gateway Tour last year, winning the 2006 San Juan Open. Building on a first-round 6-under-par 66, the 24-year-old two-time All-American at Colorado State from Glasgow, Scotland, ranks No. 1 for the week in total driving. "The first two days, I've driven it really well," Laird said. "There are some long holes out here and if you don't hit good drives, some of the par 4s are trouble. It's definitely a lot easier game if you are hitting it long and down the middle." Laird's four-stroke lead is the largest 36-hole lead on the Nationwide Tour in 2007. The only green Laird missed during his second round was his first hole. With 13 fairways hit and 17 of 18 greens in regulation, Laird's bogey-free round was relatively stress-free. "I hit a lot of good putts today that didn't go in," said Laird, who holds a second-round lead for the first time in his Nationwide Tour career. "I said to my caddie walking in that I could have shot 9 under today without doing too much extra." Thompson and Carballo shot matching 6-under par 66s on Friday morning to post the early clubhouse lead at 7 under after playing through high winds in the afternoon on Thursday. Thompson and Carballo rank No. 5 and No. 6, respectively, on the Nationwide Tour money list and both have already recorded victories early in the season. Thompson, a PGA TOUR member in 2006 directly after graduating from Georgia Tech, won the HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship in a playoff against David Morland IV earlier this year. Thompson finished 180th on the PGA TOUR money list in 2006 making 15 of 32 cuts. "Maybe the wind can kick up a little for the afternoon guys," Thompson said jokingly. "I don't wish for it to be more windy this afternoon, just even with what we played yesterday." Carballo won the season-opening Movistar Panama Championship in his first-ever start on the Nationwide Tour, earning full status on Tour through the end of the 2008 season. The 26-year-old resident of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has made the cut in all four tournaments he has played on the Nationwide Tour this season. "This is my goal and what I wanted for my career -- to compete on the Nationwide Tour and one day reach the PGA TOUR," Carballo said. Skip Kendall, the Tour's leading money winner in 2007, leads a pack of seven players who are five shots back at 6 under par. Also at 6 under are Hunter Haas, David McKenzie, Tom Scherrer, Sal Spallone, 1996 U.S. Open winner Steve Jones and Monday qualifier Brian Quackenbush. Second-Round News & Notes: Greg Chalmers hit a 7-iron on the 171-yard par-3 8th hole for a hole-in-one.... The average score on the fourth hole (par 4, 421 yards) was 4.750 and played as the hardest hole during the second round. With the .750 over-par average, the hole ranks as the third-toughest hole over the course of a single round on the Nationwide Tour this year. The 18th hole at Wente Vineyards averaged .852 strokes over par during the fourth round of the Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship and the eighth hole at Kooyanga Golf Club for the final round Jacob's Creek Open Championship played at .778 over par... The scoring average during the second round was more than a stroke higher than Thursday's round at 73.303, up from 72.224. The par-5 14th hole ranked the easiest at 4.461... 60 players made the cut at 1 under par, the fewest to make the cut in a 2007 Nationwide Tour event... Ian Leggett, Matt Hansen and Kyle Gallo withdrew during the second round due to injury. THEY SAID IT: "People over here always ask how I can eat haggis and if I know what's in it," said Scotsman Martin Laird. "I ask them the same thing about hot dogs." Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
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