Day extends lead to three at water-logged Wells Fargo

POTOMAC — Jason Day ditched his white Nike hat in the middle of his soggy second round at the Wells Fargo Championship on Friday morning. After playing partner Max Homa complained of dripping water affecting his putting on the last of their first nine holes, Day mulled over his options.

“I was talking to Max, and he took his hat off on 18 because he hit his first putt way past. And he goes, ‘I flinched because water hit my club.’”

“I decided to take it off. Not many times you see this hair,” Day joked.

So, he chose to lose the hat. But he didn’t lose the lead.

The Australian shot 3-under 67 in the second round at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, continuing his momentum to move to 10-under for the tournament and take a three-shot lead into the weekend.

“It was nice to get this round under my belt in these conditions,” Day said after his morning round. “All the work that I put in kind of in the offseason, off weeks, it’s starting to show a lot of signs, and I’m finding a lot of confidence in that swing.”

Day now gets to dry off and relax following what he called a “grind it out” round as the former world No. 1 seeks his first PGA Tour victory since 2018. That, ironically, was in this tournament four years ago to-the-day at its home course, Quail Hollow Club.

“It’s nice to be back in the mix, nice to be leading,” Day said. “It’s still two more days left, so I can’t get too far ahead of myself.”

Homa shot a 4-under 66, good enough for sole possession of second place after 36 holes at 7-under, three back of Day.

“Anytime it’s raining constantly like that for an extended period, it was challenging to stay dry and just stay patient,” Homa said “It’s tough to get around this golf course anyway, but add that element of cold and rain. It was challenging out there.”

The rain rarely relented, with the afternoon groups seeing a few brief moments of respite that their morning counterparts didn’t. Temperatures struggled to break 60 degrees, nearly 20-degrees cooler than average for this time of year in greater Washington, and the wind picked up as stronger storms moved in later in the day.

“When you have conditions like this, it’s really hard to commit to a shot because you’re going in there and you’re doing it kind of a lot quicker than your normal pre-shot routine,” Day said, “so you have to force yourself to hit the shot and trust that.”

Ponding water was a factor around the course, making some of the TPC Potomac fairways look more like the Potomac River and deflating scoring. The course, which played to a cumulative 64-under in Thursday’s first round, played at 386-over in round two.

Play wasn’t halted at any point during the round due to weather, but afternoon tee times were bumped 10 minutes later due to the morning rounds taking five-plus hours to complete. Although fairway shots consistently landed like lawn darts, creating sprays of water with little to no rollout, Avenel Farm’s greens remained playable and proved to be more receptive.

“The greens have held up really well,” Homa said. “There’s obviously a lot of puddling in the fairways. We’re in a pretty low area here. But the greens held up.”

Rockville native Denny McCarthy’s afternoon round took more than five-and-a-half hours to complete, but he backed up his first-round 65 with a 1-under 69.  The University of Virginia grad, who’s only carded two bogies all week, is in a four-way tie for third at 6-under with Luke List, James Hahn, and Kurt Kitayama.

“I didn’t have my best stuff today at all,” McCarthy said. “I didn’t really hit it that great, but I put it in the right spots to let myself get it up and down, manageable up-and-downs, and I had a nice putter for most of the day. Hung in there and just shooting under par today feels pretty good.”

Joel Dahmen, who entered the day one-back of Day and briefly took a two-shot lead after an eagle on No. 14, had a disastrous second nine. He gave back seven strokes, and went triple bogey-bogey-bogey over his final three holes to finish 5-over for the round and 1-under overall.

Rory McIlroy faced similar struggles. He bogeyed three of his first seven holes, finishing his round 3-over and even on the tournament, just above the cutline. Notable players who missed the cut and won’t be playing the weekend include Harry Higgs (1-over), Francesco Molinari (2-over), Webb Simpson (5-over), and Patrick Reed, who shot a second-round 79 to finish at 7-over after posting a 68 on Thursday. 

The water-logged conditions are expected to continue into the weekend with even colder temperatures expected. Saturday’s third round groups will go out on both the front and back nines to try and expedite play and complete the round.