Christiaan Bezuidenhout carded a four-under-par 67 on Friday to climb 17 places on the leaderboard of the PGA Tour’s Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas, Nevada into a share of 17th.
Bezuidenhout holed out for eagle from a greenside bunker from 25 metres on the ninth, his last hole of the round, and he also had four birdies and two bogeys on his card as he reached seven-under for the tournament. He was five shots behind the leader, Mito Pereira of Chile, who reached 12-under with a second-round eight-under-par 63. Pereira led by one from American Robby Shelton, who also signed for a 63. Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim of Korea shared third on 10-under with Maverick McNealy of the United States.
Behind Bezuidenhout, Dean Burmester found his feet after his first round of level-par 71, and he made six birdies without dropping a shot on his way to a six-under-par 65. That saw him rocket 72 places up the leaderboard into a share of 26th. He found his rhythm off the tees, which is such an important part of his game. He averaged over 318 yards for his driving, and he hit all but one of the fairways.
Bezuidenhout was a little less lengthy at 302 yards, and less accurate at 10 out of 14 fairways hit.
Garrick Higgo, Dylan Frittelli and MJ Daffue all missed the cut after rounds of 68, 71 and 71 respectively.
