HILTON HEAD ISLAND, South Carolina — Jimmy Walker was feeling like his old self after his second straight 6-under 65 win on Friday — and so was Masters champion John Rahm midway through RBC Heritage.
Walker hit his third consecutive round sixes overall to make a two-day total of 12-under 130 at Harbor Town, three shots better than Scotty Scheffler, Justin Rose and Xander Schauffele.
Ram, who won at Augusta National last week — his second major championship of his career and his fourth on the PGA Tour of the season — recovered from his 1-over-72 opening Thursday with a 64 to move to 6-under. He still has a lot of work to do, though, as another win seems more achievable to the world No. 1 seed than it did after the opening round.
Walker will try to maintain his power play, something he has struggled with since walking away from the game amid a long battle with Lyme disease.
“I haven’t put two good rounds together back-to-back here,” said Walker, who has missed eight rounds in the last 12 events.
He’ll need to do it against a quality field as seven of the world’s top 10 players battle it out for their share of the $20m purse in the Tour’s sixth dedicated event of the season.
Scheffler, ranked No. 2 in the world, shot 65 against Olympique Schauffele 66, and Rose 67 to reach minus 9. The trio all reached milestones in the event, with Rose his 400th Tour start, his 150th Chevelle and Scheffler’s 100th.
Patrick Cantlay, who lost in a playoff to Jordan Spieth a year ago at Harbor Town, was in a group of four more shots. Cantlay’s round 65 included a hole-in-one (his third career ace on tour) in the seventh.
Tommy Fleetwood (65), Mark Hubbard (66), first-round leader Aaron Ray (71) and Victor Hovland (70) were 8-under.
Spieth (67) and Matt Kuchar (67), the 2014 champ, were part of a group of eight in the 7-under.
Walker has won six times on the tour, most recently in 2016 at the PGA Championship, his only major championship and the culmination of his rise to become one of golf’s top Americans. In the fall of that year, he went on a hunting trip in southern Texas and subsequently fell ill. He was diagnosed with Lyme disease the following spring and battled its effects for years. When he walked away from touring last year, he wasn’t sure he’d ever come back.
But the start of the LIV Golf circuit, and the PGA Tour players who gave up membership, moved Walker into the top 50 of all-time winners. This means a one-time exemption from playing on this year’s tour.
Walker wasn’t sure it was the right move, but decided to return with the support of his family. His comeback hasn’t been easy, but until now, it’s been a different story in Hilton Head.
Never a straight driver, Walker has so far kept his ball in play at tree-tight Harbor Town and made enough shots to move up front.
Such was the case on Friday that he made seven birdies, none shorter than 7 feet. His most unlikely par-3 14th came when he holed a putt about 50 feet from the green.
Walker hopes he can dial in what has worked so far this weekend. He said the hardest part was the inconsistency in how he felt.
“Since I got sick, I feel different mentally and physically every day, and that was the hardest part,” he said. “Things that work one day, don’t feel like the next.”
However, Walker never backed down when he was on the hunt and was ready to take it on a big field.
“I never felt afraid of going to win a golf tournament,” he said.
So is Ram, who despite his fatigue for the Masters has honored the commitment he and the other Masters have made to play in the new events appointed for the tour. He has a chance to collect his plaid jacket from this tournament to match his new green jacket.
Ram put in a bogey-free run with seven birdies, showing his world-best form early on. He started on the back nine and had four straight birdies starting on the 11th hole. It rolled in 33 feet by 14 by 3 by 14.
We still have work to do to hunt down Walker, but Ram thinks it could be a factor in the end.
“Today in general I felt very good,” said Ram. “I felt like my body was moving right. It’s still not as good as I’d like it to be, but really, really good. So, I hope it gets a little better.”