PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Colin Montgomerie settled for a one-stroke lead in the Champions Tour’s First Tee Open after bogeying the final hole Saturday at Pebble Beach.

The 52-year-old Scot finished with a 5-under 67, missing a 6-foot par putt on the par-5 18th to fall to 8-under 135. He opened with a 68 on Friday at par-71 Poppy Hills.

Second behind Jeff Maggert in the Charles Schwab Cup points race, Montgomerie is coming off a victory two weeks ago in England in a European Senior Tour event. All three of his Champions Tour victories have come in majors, the last a successful title defense in the Senior PGA Championship in May.

Olin Browne has second after a 65 at Poppy Hills.

Mexico’s Esteban Toledo was third at 6 under after a 66 at Pebble Beach.

Fred Couples birdied the 18th at Pebble Beach for a 66 to join Woody Austin at 5 under. Austin had a 70 at Pebble Beach, the site of the final round.

Tom Watson was 3 under after a 65 at Pebble Beach. The 66-year-old Watson birdied the first four holes and six of the first seven. He added birdies on 14 and 15, but dropped a stroke on 16. Watson won the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and took the PGA Tour’s Bing Crosby event at the course in 1977 and 1978.

First-round leaders Tom Byrum and Sweden’s Jesper Parnevik struggled. Byrum had a 73 at Poppy Hills to fall into a tie for ninth at 3 under, and Parnevik was tied for 15th at 2 under after a 75 at Pebble Beach.

Maggert was even par after a 69 at Pebble Beach. He leads the tour with four victories, winning three of his last six starts.

Davis Love III was 2 over after a 70 at Pebble Beach. He won the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship last month to become the third-oldest champion in tour history at 51 years, 4 months, 10 days.

Calgary’s Stephen Ames sits T6 at 4-under while fellow Canadian Rod Spittle finished 1-under on the day to reach T21 at even-par.

EL DORADO, Ark. – On a day when the field average was 77.04, Sara-Maude Juneau (Quebec, Canada) fired a stellar, 69, to take a one shot lead at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout Presented by PepsiCo at Mystic Creek Golf Club.

“I was really excited about it,” Juneau said. “I just went shot-by-shot and I still can’t believe it because that golf course to me feels really hard but I went shot-by-shot and tried to hit the green and when I was in trouble I got up-and-down.”

Play was suspended due to darkness at 7:35 p.m. with eight players still out on the course. Second round play will resume tomorrow at 7:45 a.m. and the final round will begin no earlier than 9:00 a.m. from split tees. Leaders will tee off last from the first tee.

“I’ll have to think about it a little bit,” Juneau said about her game plan going into the final round. “I was in this exact position a few weeks ago. I’ll think about it tonight. I don’t know it’s just going to be keep griding it out. What I learned two weeks ago is that I don’t have any control over what any of the other girls do. Someone shot a really low round when I was leading so I’ll just have to stay patient.”

Juneau birdied three holes en route to a bogey-free round, the lone bogey-free round of the week at Mystic Creek. The Louisville grad, who sits at 2-under for the tournament, has some extra support this week in the form of a caddie who used to play on Tour.

“My friend Laura Nochta is on the bag,” Juneau said. “She actually played on this tour for a while and she lives in Arkansas now and it worked out that she could come and caddie so it’s been fun.”

Chasing Juneau down will be Jackie Stoelting (Vero Beach, Fla.) who is a shot back at 1-under 143 and Heather Bowie Young (Ft. Worth, Texas) the first round leader who is two back at even par.

UCA GRAD JULIA ROTH THREE BACK

University of Central Arkansas grad Julia Roth (Karlskrona, Sweden) sits in a tie for fourth heading into the final day of Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout Presented by PepsiCo.

“It’s been really solid,” Roth said of her play. “I have all of my coaches here today and we had a good talks before the round. I just really kept it simple out there. I didn’t really try to fight for birdies out there because you can’t really do that on this course. You’ve got to play smart and I feel like I did that for the most part.”

Roth, who still needs to finish her 18th hole tomorrow morning, had a large contingent of UCA friends and fans following her throughout her round.

“It was awesome,” Roth said with a smile. “On the front nine, the whole team was actually out there. I know they’re really close to me. For me, living over here, with a lot of my family and friends back in Sweden, this feels like playing at home for sure. It was awesome out there.”

JACKIE STOELTING BACK ON SYMETRA LOOKING TO REGAIN CONFIDENCE

Jackie Stoelting (Vero Beach, Fla.) is one of only two players to sit under par heading into the final round of the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout Presented by PepsiCo.

“I’ll take it,” Stoelting said with a smile. “It’s a tough course. It’s a really good golf course. It reminded me a lot of what I played this year out on the LPGA. I think being out on the LPGA prepared me to play a course like this really well.”

Stoelting, who finished third last season on the Volvik Race for the Card money list to earn her LPGA Tour card and competed full-time on the LPGA this season, shot a second round 70 (-2) to move from T13 into solo second.

“It’s really about the greens,” Stoelting explained. “The greens are sloped and you need to know how to hit on them but it’s also placement off the tee so you can give yourself a good shot into the green. You can’t be scared out there because it’s really easy to be scared on these greens. You’ve just got to play your game and hope the putts fall but the greens are running so well and so smooth to where if you feel like you can make a putt then you will.”

While Stoelting didn’t have the season she would have envisioned out on the LPGA she is hoping that a few tournaments on the Symetra Tour will give her confidence going into the final stage of LPGA Qualifying School in December.

“It was a long year and a tough tough year,” Stoelting admitted. “I learned a lot of patience. The scores out there are so low every week. Out there, I made a lot of silly mistakes and didn’t make enough birdies to offset the bogeys and that’s what the great thing is about today. If I can have a double and shoot 2-under. I’ll take that every day. I think that was my problem on the LPGA is that I’d make mistakes and then put pressure on myself like ‘ oh my gosh I just made a bogey I’ve got to make a birdie’. I didn’t play my game like I did last year out here where I never thought about the cut line and out on LPGA I thought about the cut line too much. I’m playing a couple of events out here to get my confidence back and know that it wasn’t just a fluke that I made it. I know I’m a good player. I just had to learn a lot out there.”

SPONSOR INVITE ALLY MCDONALD STAYS IN THE HUNT

Sponsor invite Ally McDonald (Fulton, Miss.) Remains in the hunt at 1-over par through two days at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout Presented by PepsiCo.

“I try not to get numbers in my head but starting out this tournament I knew with the golf course how it is that anything around even par would leave me in contention,” McDonald explained. “I’m really happy with how I played other than one hole. Definitely have a lot positives going into tomorrow.”

McDonald, who is competing in her first event on the Symetra Tour, tallied three birdies, three bogeys and a triple on her way to a second round 75 (+3).

“When you’re playing and are in contention nothing really changes,” McDonald admitted. “Especially out here you can’t start firing at pins because that’s when you get into a lot of trouble. Tomorrow nothing really changes. I’ll just continue to put the ball in a good place off the tee and then use good strategic planning in my approaches and hopefully get some putts to drop.”

While she sits only three strokes back of Sara-Maude Juneau don’t expect the Mississippi State grad to stress too much about anything other than the Bulldog’s game at Auburn.

“I’m going to hit a few balls, hit a few putts and then watch some college football of course.”

EL DORADO NATIVE MCCURDY ENJOYS HER WEEK

El Dorado native Amanda McCurdy may have missed the cut at the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout Presented by PepsiCo at Mystic Creek Golf Club but she enjoyed being back in her hometown.

“I get here maybe once a year so it’s pretty exciting,” McCurdy said. “I work pretty hard on my businesses trying to build my instruction program and I’m really proud of that. To be able to come back here, I don’t think anyone expected me to win anything, so I hope that I respected the game and showed respect to those around me while I enjoyed being here for a few days.”

The Arkansas grad finished with a two-day total of 162 (+18) after rounds of 85 and 77.

“I didn’t expect a lot of great golf from me,” McCurdy admitted. “I teach seven days a week so I knew the expectations weren’t incredibly high especially coming to a course that’s this type of challenge. I was more so here for being around the community of El Dorado and giving support to the event. I was walking up the last tee and couldn’t believe that eight years ago there would be a Symetra event here and it’s very crazy that there is and I’m so proud of everyone who did all of the work for it.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Roberto Castro shot a 3-under 68 on Saturday to take a two-stroke lead in the Web.com Tour Finals’ Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

Castro birdied the par-4 15th and 16th holes and closed with two pars to finish at 7-under 206 on Ohio State’s Scarlet Course. The 30-year-old former Georgia Tech player has played the PGA Tour the last four seasons, but slipped to 188th in the FedEx Cup standings to drop into the series that replaced Q-school.

The tournament is the third of four events for the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour money list, Nos. 126-200 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and non-members who earned enough money to have placed in the top 200 had they been eligible to receive points.

The top 25 players on Web.com Tour regular-season money list earned PGA Tour cards. They are competing against each other for tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals. The other players are fighting for another 25 cards based on series earnings, with Castro entering the week tied for 11th with $30,118. Last year, Eric Axley took the 25th card with $36,312.

Harold Varner III, Robert Garrigus and Zack Fisher were tied for second at 5 under. Varner had a 66, Garrigus shot 67, and Fisher 69.

Varner finished 25th on the Web.com Tour money list to earn a PGA Tour card and has made $22,902 in the finals to jump to 20th.

Garrigus, the winner of the PGA Tour’s 2010 Children’s Miracle Network Classic, was 174th in the FedEx Cup standings. He missed the cuts in the first two series events.

Fisher was 48th on the Web.com Tour money list and has earned $2,630 in the series.

ATLANTA – Jordan Spieth was so consumed with trying to make birdies and save pars on a rugged, rainy afternoon at the Tour Championship that he didn’t realize until after he signed for a 2-under 68 that he had a one-shot lead.

He knows exactly what’s at stake Sunday in what was shaping up as a dynamic end to the season.

Spieth made four big par saves and ended with a 20-foot birdie to overtake Henrik Stenson for the lead at East Lake. Already with the best year in golf, the Masters and U.S. Open champion is now one round away from the richest year in golf history.

A victory would push him over a record $12 million for the season, and give him the $10 million bonus for winning the FedEx Cup.

“No matter what, it’s a dream-come-true season,” said Spieth, who was at 8-under 202. “So I don’t need tomorrow to justify it. I’m not going to sit here and say $10 million doesn’t mean anything to me, because it does. It’s a fantastic bonus that I don’t even know where it came from … but all of a sudden they just want to give us more money. So it’s fine with me.

“I’ll work hard for the win tomorrow because I want to win this golf tournament,” he said. “It would be special to get your name on that trophy.”

He’s not the only one who feels that way. And he’s not the only with that chance.

Stenson had another ordinary day by his standards with his ball-striking, though he held it together for a 72. It was his first time in seven rounds that Stenson was over par, and the first time in his two trips to the Tour Championship that he was no longer in the lead.

“We’re still at the races,” Stenson said. “I would have liked to have gone a few better, but we’re still up there and yeah, it’s all going to be decided tomorrow.”

Don’t overlook Rickie Fowler.

He shot 31 on the back nine for a 67, the low score of the third round, and was four shots behind.

Spieth, Stenson and Fowler are among the top five seeds in the FedEx Cup, and only have to win the Tour Championship on Sunday to claim the FedEx Cup.

Starting the FedEx Cup playoffs, Spieth always knew that the Tour Championship was the only event that really mattered for winning golf’s biggest bonus. He looked at East Lake like the final major of the year, and it played like that on Saturday.

A light, steady rain made the course so long that Stenson had to hit fairway metal twice into par 4s, and he couldn’t reach one of them. Spieth narrowly cleared the water to the lay-up zone on the par-5 ninth.

“What is that race called, `Tough Mudder?’ That’s what it felt like,” Stenson said.

As tough it was in the third round, the FedEx Cup finale might be even more difficult – if not because of the course, then the competition and what’s at stake.

Six players were separated by five shots, which includes Paul Casey (71) who was tied with Fowler at 4-under 206. Casey is unlikely to win the FedEx Cup and might have least amount of pressure on him. Stenson already has four runner-up finishes this year – two in the FedEx Cup playoffs – and is determined to win.

“I’m very pleased with where we stand going into tomorrow, and Henrik’s going to come back very strong,” Spieth said. “This was his off day, and so I’m going to have to play even better.”

Spieth says he doesn’t feel any pressure at all. Win or lose, his year is tough to beat. But over the last two days, the 22-year-old Texan is looking like the guy who was tough to beat in the biggest events this year.

He has made only two bogeys all week, and he has produced an array of amazing par saves. The most timely were on Saturday.

Spieth saved par with a long bunker shot on the par-3 second, and he got up-and-down from 70 yards on the par-4 fifth hole, even after blasting a driver and a 3-wood. He was four shots behind and in the front bunker on No. 8, a flat lie facing a steep hill, and he had resigned to make bogey. Stenson was about 10 feet away for birdie. Spieth picked it clean and got up-and-down from 5 feet, while Stenson missed.

“I could have easily been 3 over through eight,” Spieth said.

The other big save was on the 16th, when Spieth blocked it so badly off the tee he called out, “Holy, right!” It missed by a foot going into the bushes, he drilled a line drive through the pine trees to the first cut, hit wedge to 20 feet and holed it for par.

“A miracle save on 16,” Stenson called it.

Stenson’s three-shot lead began to vanish with back-to-back bogeys to start the back nine, and he fell into a tie with a bad miss on the 17th into a bunker that left him no choice but to play away from the flag about 25 feet away. The lead was gone when Spieth made his birdie on the final hole.

“It’s just like a major championship. That’s what it feels to me like out there,” Spieth said. “And we’re in another position to do some fun stuff.”

BAD GRIESBACH, Germany – Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand carded a 7-under 64 Saturday to take a one-stroke lead after the third round of the European Open.

Jaidee had eight birdies and a bogey to add to his two rounds of 68. He climbed 14 places for a 13-under total of 200 in southeastern Germany.

Pelle Edberg of Sweden and England’s Ross Fisher and Graeme Storm were all a shot back at 12 under, while Jamie Donaldson of Wales, Magnus A Carlsson of Sweden and Mikko Ilonen of Finland were tied for fifth at 11 under.

Peter Uihlein of the United States and Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen were both 10 under, while veteran Bernhard Langer shot 70 and is tied for 31st.

An even-par performance on the day has Toronto’s Albin Choi T55 at 3-under.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Jesper Parnevik birdied three of his last four holes Friday at Poppy Hills for a share of the lead with Tom Byrum in the Champions Tour’s First Tee Open.

Parnevik had a 5-under 66. Byrum birdied the par-5 18th at Pebble Beach for a 5-under 67.

Parnevik had six birdies and one bogey. The 50-year-old Swede is winless in 12 starts on the 50-and-over tour after winning five times on the PGA Tour.

The 54-year-old Byrum had five birdies in a bogey-free round. He was second last year, a stroke behind John Cook, and is winless in 62 career senior starts.

Mark McNulty was third at 4 under after a 68 at Pebble Beach, the site of the final round.

Colin Montgomerie, Sandy Lyle and Woody Austin shot 68 at Poppy Hills to reach 3 under. Montgomerie is coming off a victory two weeks ago in England in a European Senior Tour event.

Jeff Maggert opened with a 74 at Poppy Hills. He leads the tour with four victories – winning three of his last six starts – and tops the Charles Schwab Cup standings.

Davis Love III had a 75 at Poppy Hills. He won the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship last month to become the third-oldest champion in tour history at 51 years, 4 months, 10 days.

Cook had a 72 at Poppy Hills.

ATLANTA – As Tiger Woods recovers from another operation on his increasingly creaky body, the Tour Championships goes on without him at soggy East Lake.

No big deal.

Tiger’s era is over.

It’s time for everyone – fans, media, sponsors – to fully embrace the new vanguards of the game.

Rory McIlroy. Jordan Spieth. Jason Day.

Golf’s in very capable hands, even more so when you throw Rickie Fowler into the mix.

“It’s been fun to be a part of this whole group,” Day said. “Golf is in such a good spot now with where we are with the youth of the game, how we’re growing the game.’

There have been only a handful of periods during golf’s modern era (since the PGA Championship became a stroke-play event in 1958) when at least three players under the age of 28 have held major titles.

This new Big Three already have seven among them, and it’s only a matter of time before Fowler joins them in that exclusive club.

“I’m going to say the Big Four,” Day interjected, with good reason.

None of these guys is likely to surpass Woods’ legacy, which stands at 14 major titles – more than anyone except Jack Nicklaus.

Woods was a transformational figure, a once-in-a-generation athlete whose drawing power extended beyond the golf course. Many of the folks who cheered him on didn’t know or really care about the game itself. They were simply enamored, rightly so, with someone who played it better than anyone ever had. Being an African-American in a predominantly white sport only heightened Woods’ influence. When he was in the field, the crowds ballooned, the TV ratings skyrocketed.

McIlroy, Spieth and Day won’t have that sort of impact.

But golf should consider itself very fortunate.

The game couldn’t have hoped for much better when it came to filling the post-Tiger void, producing three players who cover all of golf’s major power bases: Europe, the United States and Australia.

McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, won the final two majors of 2014. Spieth, from Texas, took the first two this year. Day, from Australia, won the most recent. The only one to escape that trio’s grasp during that span was the British Open at St. Andrews, where Spieth and Day both finished one shot out of a three-man playoff won by Zach Johnson.

“The back and forth is fantastic,” Day said.

Only 22, Spieth has put together one of the greatest years in the history of the sport. His victories at the Masters and the U.S. Open – not to mention his close call at the British Open and runner-up finish to Day in the PGA Championship – should be enough to give him the PGA Tour’s player of the year award.

The 26-year-old McIlroy was sidetracked by a fluke injury while playing soccer with his mates, forcing him to sit out St. Andrews. But he’s already got four major titles and merely needs the Masters to wrap up his career Grand Slam.

Then there’s Day, whose career was marked by several close calls in the majors until his dominating romp at Whistling Straits last month. The 27-year-old has won two more times since then in the FedEx Cup playoff, surging to No. 1 in the world rankings ahead of McIlroy and Spieth, who went back and forth with the top spot over the previous month.

Get used to that sort of flip-flopping.

“We’re fearless,” said Spieth, whose 66 Friday left him just three shots behind leader Henrik Stenson. “You obviously need a bit of luck, but luck comes from believing luck will come. Luck comes from a self-belief that you have, the ability to close the deal out.”

Already, there are comparisons to another Big Three, maybe the greatest of them all: Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, who dominated the game in the early 1960s and wound up with a total of 34 major championships.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

With much deeper fields and a broadening talent pool around the world, no threesome is likely to approach those numbers.

“It’s a nice conversation to be a part of,” said McIlroy, six strokes off the pace going to the weekend, while Day was three more shots behind. “Jordan’s sort of like the Jack, methodical and sort of does everything that way. … I would be Gary, because I’m the smallest. And then I guess that would leave Jason as Arnie.”

While McIlroy was only kidding, he wasn’t totally off base.

Personality-wise, this trio is certainly more in line with Nicklaus, Player and Palmer than they are with the usually distant Woods.

Day joked to reporters that if he won the $10 million prize that’s up for grabs this week, “I might buy a few more V-necks from Target.” Spieth photobombed a couple of female fans posing for a picture during a practice round, playfully sticking out his tongue and giving a thumbs-up as he walked into their frame. McIlroy talking openly about a year that didn’t go quite as he had hoped, conceding that “I maybe put a little too much pressure on myself.”

They’re not Tiger, but that’s OK.

Golf is doing just fine without him.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Martin Flores shot a 1-under 70 on Friday to take a one-stroke lead after the second round of the Web.com Tour Finals’ Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship.

Flores, tied for the first-round lead after a 67, had three birdies and two bogeys – all on the back nine – to reach 5-under 137 on Ohio State’s difficult Scarlet Course. The 33-year-old Texan has played the PGA Tour five of the last six seasons.

“I try to do a good job of keeping a good attitude,” Flores said. “Sometimes it’s a struggle, but this game is tough sometimes. … Everybody has a battle within themselves of some kind when they play. It’s overcoming that battle and going out there and executing golf shots.”

The tournament is the third of four events in the series for the top 75 players from the Web.com Tour money list, Nos. 126-200 in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings and non-members who earned enough money to have placed in the top 200 had they been eligible to receive points.

The top 25 players on Web.com regular-season money list earned PGA Tour cards. They are competing against each other for PGA Tour priority, with regular-season earnings counting in their totals. The other players are fighting for another 25 cards based on series earnings.

Flores was 156th in the FedEx Cup and has made $2,900 in the series.

“Every year, if you don’t go out and prove yourself, you’re going to get beat up a little bit,” Flores said. “Sometimes you take a step back to take a couple of leaps forward.”

Sam Saunders, Arnold Palmer’s grandson, was tied for second with Roberto Castro, Luke List and Australia’s Rhein Gibson. List had a 67, and Saunders, Castro and Gibson shot 68.

“I actually find tougher courses better for me,” Gibson said. “I like to grind when par is a good score.”

Saunders was 137th in the FedEx Cup and is tied for ninth on the series money list at $44,000 after one start, a tie for fourth in the opener in Indiana. Castro was 188th in the FedEx Cup and is tied for 11th at $30,118. Gibson was 33rd on the Web.com Tour money list and has made $10,800 in the series. List was 64th on the Web.com Tour money list and missed the cuts in the first two series events.

Last year, Eric Axley took the 25th card with $36,312. In 2013, Bobby Gates was 25th at $33,650.

Sweden’s Henrik Norlander won the pener in Indiana, and Chez Reavie took the second event last week in North Carolina. Norlander was tied for 11th at 2 under after a 71, and Reavie was another stroke back after a 72.

ATLANTA – Two years after Henrik Stenson sailed to victory at the Tour Championship, he has another comfortable lead after 36 holes at East Lake and Jordan Spieth is chasing him.

Back then, Spieth was a 20-year-old rookie.

Now he’s the Masters and U.S. Open champion, and he found a spark in a steady drizzle Friday.

Stenson overcame a few mistakes off the tee and was solid on the back nine for a 2-under 68, stretching his lead to three shots over Spieth going into the weekend and moving closer to his first win of the year – and a $10 million bonus for claiming the FedEx Cup.

“I didn’t feel like it was my best day, but I managed to keep it together and 2 under around here is never bad,” Stenson said.

He doesn’t know anything different. This was his sixth straight round under par at East Lake, a course where the Swede has led after every round he has played.

Stenson, who went wire-to-wire in the Tour Championship in 2013, was at 9-under 131.

Spieth has made only one bogey over two rounds, and a pair of par saves on consecutive holes on the front nine felt just as valuable as his four birdies in a round of 66. The average score was 71.6 on a wet day that yielded only four rounds under par.

Spieth went from the right rough to the left rough on No. 5 and still had 60 yards left and a tree in front of him. He took a risk going through the tree to 6 feet for par, and then rolled in a 20-foot par putt for a bunker save on the par-3 sixth.

“It was huge,” Spieth said about the par saves. “I thought I may have to re-tee, and I was just kind of all over the place at that time. And that third shot I hit on 5, I mean, one of 10, maybe. There was no other option, but it wasn’t necessarily smart. And I had to have the wind blowing this branch back and forth, I had to hit it when it blew it this way or else it would have gone up into it.”

He closed with a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-3 18th to get into the final group.

Paul Casey made bogey from the bunker on the 18th for a 70 and was four shots behind, while British Open champion Zach Johnson birdied three of his last four holes to overcome a double bogey on the par-5 ninth. He had a 70 and was at 4-under 136.

Jason Day, in his first event as No. 1 in the world, finally looked human. He felt flat, wasn’t sharp off the tee or into the greens, and shot a 71. It was his third round over par in his last 10 tournaments, and it left him nine shots behind.

Stenson was four shots clear of Adam Scott after 36 holes when he won the Tour Championship two years ago, with Spieth another shot behind. Spieth made a late run on Sunday and tied for second, capping off a remarkable rookie season.

He is looked at differently now – the Masters and U.S. Open champion and looking more certain to be voted PGA Tour player of the year.

“He’s one of the best players in the world as we know, and had a fantastic year behind him,” Stenson said. “So he’s going to be a very tough contender throughout these last two days. He was good already back then, but he’s certainly not any less good now. We know that much. Once again, I’ve got to focus on my game and bring my game and keep my head down and foot down and press on if I want to leave the guys behind me.”

The biggest challenge figures to be East Lake, especially with more wet conditions in the forecast.

The Bermuda rough can be tricky when it’s dry because it can be difficult to judge how far the ball flies out of it. Wet rough is difficult in a different manner. It makes the course longer off the tee, and longer coming out of the thick grass.

Day hit a 3-wood from 195 yards in the rough on No. 5. Had it been dry conditions like Thursday, Day figures he would have hit 8-iron.

Stenson hit a 4-wood and a gap wedge to a front pin on No. 4 in the opening round. On Friday, he hit 3-wood off the tee and still had 6-iron to a back pin.

“That’s a two-club difference when the air is heavy and you’re not getting as much roll,” he said.

With a tougher golf course, Stenson said there will be a premium on making fewer mistakes. Spieth is happy to be on a course of this nature, especially after three weeks of watching players – mostly Day – pour in one birdie after another in low-scoring affairs.

It was demoralizing at times, especially when Day started 61-63 last week at Conway Farms.

“I wasn’t going to catch him last week,” Spieth said. “I say that now. You tell me that at the time and I’ll get mad at you. I don’t accept that, and that’s my personality. This week is a bit different because there isn’t a 22 under out there.”

But there’s still Stenson, and that could prove just as daunting.

BAD GRIESBACH, Germany – Graeme Storm of England holed out for eagle on the back nine for a share of the lead at the halfway stage of the European Open on Friday.

Storm also had three birdies and a bogey for a round of 67, joining compatriot Ross Fisher and South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel at 10-under-par after the second day.

Fisher had seven birdies and a bogey for a 65, while Schwartzel had five birdies in a 66.

An Byeong-hun of South Korea and Richard McEvoy of England were tied for fourth at nine-under, ahead of South Africa’s Darren Fichardt and Sweden’s Johan Edfors on eight-under.

Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer shot a second successive 68 for his 22nd cut in a row and veteran Bernhard Langer added a 71 to his first round of 68.

Albin Choi of Toronto sits tied for 53rd following a 2-under 69 to move to 3-under in the competition.