Tommy Fleetwood on familiar turf, shares lead as Olympic chase for gold takes shape

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France (AP) — British golfer Tommy Fleetwood is on familiar turf and chasing another gold trophy at Le Golf National, this one an Olympic medal instead of that 17-inch Ryder Cup trophy.

The medal chase in men's golf began to take shape Friday with Fleetwood sharing the 36-hole lead with defending Olympic champion Xander Schauffele of Team USA and Hideki Matsuyama of Team Japan, giving another sellout crowd plenty of star power at the top.

Schauffele was slowed by ants in the rough and posted a 5-under 66, tying the 36-hole Olympic record he set at the 2020 Tokyo Games. He was joined by a pair of sloppy finishes. Fleetwood took bogey from a fairway bunker for a 64, while Matsuyama went from rough to water for a double bogey on the 18th and a 68.

They were at 11-under 131, two ahead of Jon Rahm (66).

Schauffele appears to be on auto-pilot at times, not missing a step from winning The Open Championship for his second major of the year.

Fleetwood, however, has the experience on this track. He won the French Open at Le Golf National in 2017 and then starred in Europe's Ryder Cup victory a year later, going 4-1 in his matches.

“You're always better off coming to a course where you have good feelings and good things have happened. So I'll definitely draw on those," he said. "But again, I have to stand up there tomorrow and hit the golf shots. Nothing that's happened in the past is going to do it for me.

“It's better having good feelings that having a course that's battered you to pieces.”

Schauffele had three straight birdies around the turn and was making it look easy until one bad drive on the 13th and one weird lie. The ball was buried so deep a marshal stuck his finger in the tall grass to show him where it was. Schauffele noticed something else — ants.

He was trying to position his club when he noticed something behind his golf ball.

“It was a pile of ants, an ant pile, whatever you want to call it,” he said.

There is free relief from a dangerous animal — fire ants are cited in the rules — but these weren't the dangerous variety. One official said Schauffele could scrape it away with his club, only Schauffele wasn't sure about that. A second official said he could use his tee to scrape away the pile. All that for a shot that he could only hack out some 50 yards, leading to a bogey.

That was the extent of his drama for the day.

“Five under is a good score on this property,” he said. “Overall, sitting in a good spot coming into the weekend.”

Scottie Scheffler, the world's No. 1 player, is at least in range and plenty happy about that. He took a double bogey on the seventh hole from grass so thick he could only advance the shot about 10 feet, and the next one only about 80 yards. He was 2 over for the day and losing ground quickly.

“Panic is definitely not the right word,” Scheffler said. “But when you look up at the leaderboard, I think at the time I was maybe nine shots back or something like that. Around a golf course like this, where the scores are going to continue to get lower, it could be tough to catch up. I needed to do something to get back in the tournament.”

He shot 31 on the back nine for 69 and was five shots behind. The greens have been so perplexing to Scheffler that after misreading a 6-foot birdie chance on the ninth hole, he had caddie Ted Scott read them the rest of the way and he trusted it.

“The way I was feeling, I wasn’t really going to disagree with what he was saying,” he said.

Thomas Detry of Belgium had the low round at 63 that got him within three shots of the lead, along with 22-year-old Tom Kim of South Korea (68) and C.T. Pan of Taiwan (65), the bronze medalist from the Tokyo Games.

Rahm played alongside Schauffele and at one point found himself five shots back. But the Spaniard ran off three straight birdies in the middle of the back nine, including a tee shot to 3 feet on the par-3 16th, and saved par on the final hole.

It's his first time contending on a big stage this year. Rahm tied for seventh in The Open for his best result in a major, though he was never really in the mix. Now he is, and he got a good look at what he faces in Schauffele riding a wave of momentum.

“What Xander has done this year weighs much more than the medal from three years ago,” Rahm said. He added with a laugh, "And I didn't tell him because I don't want to remind him of all the good things he has achieved.”

Rory McIlroy was six shots behind, a big push late halted by a double bogey from deep rough on the 17th hole.

“A few too many mistakes, similar story to yesterday," he said.