When Vijay Singh opened a chilly second round of the Senior PGA Championship with three straight bogeys, he started to think about things he could get done around the house this weekend. Sitting at 1 over on the Blue Course, which was most recently redesigned by Andrew Green in 2021, Singh assumed he’d have some free time.
But then he made birdie on No. 5 after getting warm. And then another on No. 8. And then No. 9. Then 10, 11, 14 and 16, as well.
By the end of the day, Singh wasn’t just hoping to make the cut, he was sitting atop the leaderboard, in a tie with Cameron Percy at 6 under par. Eight players are tied for third at 4 under, including Padraig Harrington.
“It was pretty cold in the morning. I don’t like cold. Rough start; I bogeyed my first three holes,” Singh said. “I said, well, here we go. I was planning for the weekend off. But my caddie said, just keep going. I said, yeah, I’ve been playing very well. I’ve been driving the ball good. Just hung in there and started making a couple of birdies here and there, picked up the shots, and the back nine I played solid golf.
“In your mind, you make three bogeys in the first three holes, your mind just goes haywire, you say what the hell is going on. But I’ve played long enough to know that there’s a lot of golf out there.”
Singh, who had a solid showing a week ago at the Regions Tradition, has always had an eye for Congressional, which sits just 10 minutes outside of Washington, D.C., but he said the new version of the course is nothing like the old one.
“The routing is the same, but that’s about it. It’s totally a different golf course, totally new golf course,” Singh said. “The greens are very challenging, to say the least. The pin placements were pretty tricky. You think you’ve read it correctly, but it’s subtle breaks here and there, and nobody in our group made any putts. I made a couple. I made one good one on No. 10. But it was tricky. It’s very, very hard to read the greens correctly.
“t was a hell of a golf course. Now it’s a different golf course. Same routing, like I said, but totally different golf course. But I’ve always loved playing here.”
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