Palmetto Championship: Dustin Johnson on just two points advantage over the weekend Golf news

World no. 1 Dustin Johnson has “confidence in everything I do” as he heads into the Palmetto Championship weekend, two behind Chesson Hadley, while Brooks Koepka left Congaree early.

Dustin Johnson didn’t let a mistake in the final hole take the shine off the high-quality second round as the second day of the Palmetto Championship ended with two shots from the lead.

Johnson had five goals for his round and tied with Chesson Hadley in incredible conditions in Congaree, but a wild effort eventually led to a duel as he settled for 68.

Hadley had previously set the club’s goal at 13 below, after adding a confident 66 to his opening 65, while Brooks Koepka will have an extra two days to prepare for the US Open next week after slipping to three above the level – two shots outside the half .

World no. 320 Hadley took advantage of calmer, earlier conditions and created seven birdies – three with long-range shots outside 20 yards, and Johnson posed the only significant threat to the club leader as the wind blew for later starters.

Johnson opened almost identical paths for the 10-foot birds at the openings of the two holes and broke a series of eight straight parties with their backs at 11 and 12, before the next time he pushed his drive into the sand and dropped his first. snapshot of the day.

But world number 1 drove green on par-four 15. and double for the birds, and he tried another shot with 16, only to eventually return both shots, where he pulled his way to the left of the fairway and into an unusual lie under the bush , forcing him to take a penalty kick.

Johnson was flying the green road with his third and it took him three more to land, but his shabby end hole didn’t detract from his mood as he looked forward to challenging silverware in his state over the weekend.

“I thought it was good,” he said. “The first 14 holes played extremely hard, I thought and I played really well. The wind was blowing pretty hard, it was very hard to hit, so it was really hard to get a good shot, but I felt like he did a really good ball control for golf.

“I’m happy with the way I played. It’s obviously an unfortunate end to 18. My hand slipped on the shot and I just ended up in the only place where you can’t hit it in that hole, which was a couple of bushes there on the left.

“But I play well, I swing well, I have a lot of confidence in everything I do. I’m still in a really good place for the weekend, and there’s still a lot of golf to play.”

Erik Van Rooyen fought fiercely for 71 while remaining in a six-floor clash, while his South African counterpart Wilco Nienaber continued to delight fans with his huge punches and reached seven below when he followed the birds in the first and second with an eagle on the third, peeping are from the green sandy waste area.

Nienaber took the seventh – his 16th – just before the game was interrupted due to bad weather, and on the eighth he dropped another shot below before the birdie put him back on five leads at nine.

Newcomer Tyrrell Hatton fired an encouraging 68 to score three lower, one ahead of Ian Poulter (72) and Luke Donald (69), and Matt Fitzpatrick on one of them for the weekend.

But Koepka was already heading to the airport after a disappointing five-pointer 73, dropping shots in two of three par-fives as he headed for Torrey Pines on the back of his third missed cut in his last four starts, a series broken by his final runner-up Phil Mickelson on PGA Championship last month.