Tony Finau sank a 35 1/2-foot birdie putt on his final hole to shoot a 5-under 65, joining a tie for the lead at the Cadence Bank Houston Open when the first round was suspended on Thursday.
Thirteen players completed their rounds yesterday morning after play was called due to darkness in Houston. That included Sweden’s Alex Noren, who finished with a 65 to tie with Finau and Aaron Wise atop the leaderboard.
Finau began his round on the back nine at Memorial Park Golf Course and made one birdie and one bogey. He heated up after making the turn and rolled in five birdies on the front nine, punctuated by a downhill, left-to-right putt that tracked straight into the cup at the par-3 ninth hole.
It wasn’t close to his longest putt of the day. Finau made a 59-footer for birdie at the par-3 second.
“I knew the golf course, it’s a tough golf course to play,” Finau said.
“You have to drive it in the fairway and your work’s not done, it’s hard to hit the greens. You know if you miss the green, it’s hard to get up and down, so I was just patient with myself. I made a couple bombs - I think that kind of opened it up.” Wise had a bogey-free card with four straight birdies at Nos 3-6.
“I’ve just been in a weird place with my game where I’m obviously playing well enough to shoot good scores, but there’s just a couple shots a round that are frustrating me,” said Wise, the No. 34 golfer in the world rankings, who’s seeking his second PGA Tour victory.
“Overall, even though I let it frustrate me for a second or two, I did a good job of staying patient, kind of letting it go. And I had a couple great saves to shoot bogey-free. Sometimes you shoot bogey-free and you hit 18 greens and it was just an easy round. Today, it was bogey-free on the card, but it didn’t feel stress-free.”
Noren also started on the back nine and was even par through 10 holes before birdies on Nos 2, 3, 4 and 6.
He stuck his tee shot at the par-3 ninth to 8 feet from the pin to set up his final birdie.
Tony Finau
