Curiosity has a way of leading you down unexpected paths. One piece of information leads to another, one thread connects with another, and suddenly, out of nowhere, you stumble upon an unexpected story. In searching for the best results in Andrew Novak‘s (-12) career, the surprising leader of the WN Phoenix Open tied with Nick Taylor (-12), we ended up in Colombia, in the neighbourhood of Contador, the place where the now very famous this week Country Club of Bogotá has been located since 1948, the course where Cristóbal del Solar signed a 57-stroke card this Thursday.
It turns out that one of Novak’s most outstanding performances was on this Colombian course in 2019. He finished fifth in the Country Club of Bogotá Championship, a Korn Ferry Tour tournament. The curious thing is that in that final classification, tied with him in fifth place, was a certain Scottie Scheffler, third was Doug Ghim and, a bit further back, in 34th place, finished Maverick McNealy.
Today, with the second round of the WM Phoenix Open half done due to weather suspensions, it turns out that Novak is first, McNealy has moved into third position, Ghim is fourth and Scheffler is fifth. Only five years after they all faced each other in Bogotá. From the Contador neighbourhood to Scottsdale. This is the true essence of a structure like the PGA Tour. The evolution, the growth and the development. From the very bottom to the very top.
Novak, a 28-year-old golfer from North Carolina, is experiencing the best night of his sports career this Friday. He has never before been the leader of a PGA Tour tournament after 36 holes. So far, a single victory in the Korn Ferry Tour in 2020 adorns his record. Last year he played his first season in the first division and managed to keep his card, although he didn’t finish as high as needed to get into the designated tournaments. He is playing his fourth tournament in 2024 and in the previous three (Sony Open, American Express and Farmers) he missed the cut. Who would have thought.
Novak, with two rounds of 65 strokes, built on the basis of a sensational collection of irons (he has only missed four greens in 36 holes) ties at the top of the leaderboard with Nick Taylor, who has been able to take advantage of the 60 strokes he signed in the morning in the first round of the tournament. The wave of that initial round has allowed him to sleep as leader waiting for what the afternoon players do, some of whom have not even been able to play this Friday.
In any case, it seems inevitable that both Novak and Taylor appear as sacrificial victims this weekend, in view of the pack of beasts coming from behind. To wit: four strokes behind are Scottie Scheffler (-8), who doesn’t even need to putt half well to always be up there, Justin Thomas (-8), who is precisely recovering his good touch on the greens, and Cameron Young (-8). Pure gold. Also lurking around in the top positions are Ryan Fox (-8), Sam Burns (-7) and Daniel Berger (-7).
All these players mentioned, except for Fox, have completed their first two rounds. And the tournament continues to be in disarray. To the suspension of more than three hours on Thursday due to rain, has been added a delay of more than an hour this morning to resume play due to frost. As it stands, there are players from the first round of the second round who have not yet finished and there are several from the afternoon round who have not even hit a stroke.
Play will resume this Saturday at 15:30, Spanish peninsular time, but it is clear that there will not be time to complete the third round on Saturday, so some extra holes will have to be played on Sunday to find out the champion, with the added pressure that the idea on Sunday was to finish earlier than usual to give fans time to return home to watch the Super Bowl. We’ll see what can be done and what the weather allows, as it is still very cold in Scottsdale.
