Chris Gotterup pounds his way to a 61 and leads the Scottish Open
Gotterup rolled in three long putts and was long as ever off the tee, seizing on a spectacular day of sunshine and very little wind in the morning at The Renaissance Club.
Harry Hall (64) was two shots behind, and a refreshed Ludvig Aberg (65) led a group that was three shots back.
Aberg is coming off just the break he needed — a trip home to Sweden for the first time in a year, a chance to see friends and eat his mother's special sausage and get refreshed.
He overcame a bogey-bogey start with eight birdies over his next 15 holes. That made him the only player from among the top five who played in the afternoon, when the wind kicked up along the Firth of Forth and the course became firm and bouncy enough to frustrate Scottie Scheffler and plenty of others.
Scheffler, the world's No. 1 player, had a pair of three-putts and at one point after watching a putt bounce off line he extended his arm with his thumb up in mock celebration. It wasn't all that bad. He still shot 68 and was six shots behind.
Gotterup, the Rutgers star who finished his final season at Oklahoma, was at 11-under 129.
Rory McIlroy had five birdies on the back nine (he started on No. 10) and turned that into a 65 to join the group at 7-under 133. Xander Schauffele, who defends his title next week in the British Open, was five shots back after a 66.
Schauffele rarely gets frustrated by anything, much less a score like 66. This was different. The weather was as ideal as it can get in these parts, not so much a full blue sky and a bright sun, but only a wee breeze.
'It was there for the taking,' Schauffele said.
That's exactly what Gotterup did. He's still a little jet-lagged and struggled to deal with a 5:15 a.m. alarm when he would have rather slept in. But then he saw a 45-foot birdie putt drop on the second hole. He hit it close for a few more birdies. He made a 30-footer on the tough seventh hole. And he closed out the front nine at 29 after making birdie from 20 feet.
Three more birdies over the next five holes got him to 9 under. Two more birdies — one hole was a par 5 — would have allowed him to break 60.
'That didn't cross my brain at all,' Gotterup said. 'I thought 10 (under) would be cool. I think it's still my lowest round in tournament golf. I have no complaints.'
Gotterup, along with leading the tournament, is leading the way to grab one of three spots available for the British Open. It would be nice to stay an extra week — he played the last two weeks and is scheduled for a flight to California on Monday to play the PGA Tour event in Lake Tahoe — but that's not why he came over.
He loves coming to Scotland, even for one week, as he did last year (and missed the cut). Plus, he happened to see the forecast and it was ideal all week. The fans have picked up on it, too, as Saturday already is a sellout and Sunday tickets are going fast.
'There's probably not too many better places to be,' Gotterup said, not making it clear if he was speaking entirely about Scotland or his spot on the leaderboard.
He won the Myrtle Beach Classic last year, an opposite-field event. He looks and plays like a pure athlete, and that comes form 12 years playing lacrosse as a kid in New Jersey before he decided to invest more time in golf.
'Lacrosse helps with my speed. It's a similarish motion," he said. 'When you're shooting lacrosse, I try to rip it as hard as I can. When I grew up, I hit the ball as hard as I could. It's just how I grew up playing. Maybe if I grew up here, it would be different.'
He's not aware of the rough-and-tumble Scottish game of shinty, the favorite sport of defending champion Robert MacIntyre. By the look of Gotterup, he would fit right in.
MacIntyre was simply happy to make it to the weekend. The wind blew hard enough in the afternoon, and the sun baked the greens and turned them bouncy, that good scores were hard to find. The cut settled on 1-under 139. MacIntyre made a late birdie, and Justin Thomas made a 6-foot birdie on the 18th hole to make it on the number.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
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