Bob Hope Classic, Round 2

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Mike Weir, who won the 2003 Bob Hope Classic, is one of 13 players within six shots of the lead after a 67 on Friday.

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Bob Hope Classic

PGATOUR.COM's The Live Report has all the news and notes from the Bob Hope Classic, and we'll be providing updates all day long for each round, so check back often. (All timestamps are Eastern Time.)

Jan. 22, 2010
By PGATOUR.COM Staff

WRAPPING UP ROUND 2 (7:10 p.m.): The story of the second round was that they got it in. That didn't look so promising 24 hours ago when rain was pounding PGA West.

The celebrities got the day off, but there were still plenty of highlights. Bubba Watson shot the round of the day, a 10-under 62 that matches his career low (at last year's Bob Hope Classic) and leaves him in the lead by two. His round included a front-nine record 29 on Silver Rock, the most difficult of the four courses.

Plenty of other players went low, too. Alex Prugh and Joe Ogilvie, two and three shots back, respectively, were each 6 under Friday. Martin Flores was 7 under. Chad Collins 8 under. Tim Clark 9 under. Finally, the Bob Hope Classic started looking like the Bob Hope Classic, where birdies came in bunches and the weather was good (at least most of the day)

Saturday the celebrities will return to action. There should be plenty of birdies and beautiful weather, too. Stay tuned. -- Brian Wacker

'THE 25' COME TO PLAY (6:40 p.m.): If the Nationwide Tour truly does breed PGA TOUR success, it's on display Friday at the Bob Hope Classic. Four players among the current top 10 earned their TOUR cards as part of "THE 25" money leaders to end the 2009 Nationwide Tour season.

Alex Prugh (13 under, solo second) leads the bunch. Chad Collins, who finished second to Michael Sim on the Nationwide Tour money list, is tied for sixth. Tom Gillis and Garrett Willis are both tied for 10th. As for Sim, the guy who broke all those Tour records last year? He's tied for 65th. Go figure. -- Nick Zaccardi

WATSON UPDATE (6:15 p.m.): Bubba Watson's 59 hopes likely shattered at the par-4 14th, where he carded his first bogey of the day. He's now 8 under on his second round at Silver Rock with four holes to go. One par-5 remains.

Even with a 59 out of the question, a strong finish could put distance between Watson (14 under overall) and the field. First-round leader Shane Bertsch shot a 69 at the easier Palmer Course to move to 13 under. Joe Ogilvie and Alex Prugh are also at 13 under but still playing. -- Nick Zaccardi

CLARK IN CONTENTION (5:42 p.m.): Now this is the Bob Hope Classic we're used to. The first dozen names on the leaderboard are a combined 62 under. That includes Tim Clark's 7-under round through 14 holes. Clark, of course, has yet to win in 196 starts on the PGA TOUR, but he regularly ranks among the best in driving accuracy (second in 2009), putting (ninth) and scoring (fifth). That's one of the reasons he was taken in our Expert Picks draft. He isn't disappointing, either, with eight birdies and just one bogey on the Palmer Course. He also has missed just one fairway and two greens in regulation.

At some point Clark, with numbers like this has to win. Is this the week? It could be, though there's way too much golf still to be played to know. Click here to follow the rest of Clark's round with Shot Tracker. -- Brian Wacker

AND THE BIRDIES KEEP COMING (5:25 p.m.): The Bob Hope Classic isn't a stranger to low scores -- David Duval shot a final-round 59 that included an eagle on the last hole to win here in 1999. Bubba Watson has a long way to go to shoot golf's magic number, but he's on a pretty good pace right now at 8 under through 10 holes at Silver Rock. Watson still hasn't missed a fairway or green in regulation, and he has two par-5s left on the back nine. -- Brian Wacker

OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM (5 p.m.): Last year, Mark Calcavecchia set the PGA TOUR record for most consecutive birdies with nine at the RBC Canadian Open. He's not quite having the same success here at the Bob Hope Classic.

Calcavecchia is 5 over for the tournament, but is 6 over on his round today, which includes three double bogeys, two bogeys and two birdies in a front-nine 42 at LaQuinta.

Meanwhile, leader Bubba Watson just made the turn at Silver Rock in 29 -- a course record -- with five birdies and an eagle. Watson has just obliterated the most difficult of the four courses in the rotation, hitting every fairway and green on the front side while taking just 12 putts. Click here to follow his round live with Shot Tracker. -- Brian Wacker

YOU TWEET, WE ANSWER (4:40 p.m.): "Has a decision been made about the millions raised from the pro-am fees? Will they be returned or go to charity?" -- @C_o_o

Just to be clear, the celebrities in the pro-am at the Bob Hope Classic have only today off. This was done in an effort to speed things up and get the tournament back on track after play was wiped out yesterday. They'll resume their rounds tomorrow. For a look at the celebrity leaderboard, click here. -- Brian Wacker

BIRDIES ARE BACK (4:25 p.m.): It looks like things are starting to return to normal at the Bob Hope Classic. By normal, we mean there are a lot of low numbers popping up on the leaderboard.

Bubba Watson is now 5 under through his first six holes today and atop the leaderboard for the moment, while Joe Ogilvie is just one back. Ogilvie had just six eagles all of last year. This week? He has two, including one on the par-5 eighth hole on the Nicklaus Course. -- Brian Wacker

WATSON MAKING A MOVE (4:05 p.m.): Bubba Watson has yet to hear back from Ellen DeGeneres in his campaign to be a guest on her show (read more about it here), but he could certainly increase his chances should he win this week. Right now, Watson is tied for the lead after making two birdies and an eagle in his first five holes to get to 10 under for the week. The eagle came on the 335-yard par-4 fifth hole at Silver Rock. It also brings Watson to 4 under on what's been by far the most difficult golf course this week.

Watson has yet to win on the PGA TOUR -- he has three career runner-up finishes, including a tie for second at last year's Quail Hollow Championship. With the way these courses set up, though, success in this event wouldn't be a surprise for the long-hitting Watson, who ranked second on the PGA TOUR in driving distance and first in eagles last year. -- Brian Wacker

PRUGH HANGING AROUND (3:45 p.m.): It's still early in the tournament, but one guy who might be comfortable in the wet conditions at the Bob Hope Classic is Alex Prugh. He grew up in Spokane, Wash., and was a two-time All-American at the University of Washington. His only collegiate title? The 2007 Oregon Duck Invitational, which seems awfully appropriate given the weather the first couple of days here.

All kidding aside, Prugh, who is hovering near the lead at 9 under, has flashed some game at the professional level before. The 25-year-old, who now calls Las Vegas home, won the Michael Hill New Zealand Open on the Nationwide Tour last year and he went on to finish 16th on the money list. That win, by the way, included a final-round 64 and he also shot a final-round 65 at the Knoxville Open to finish in a tie for eighth. -- Brian Wacker

SUN SHINING AGAIN (3:30 p.m.): As saturated as La Quinta is right now after all the rain the last 24 hours or so (and earlier in the week), the sun is back out, the same way it was this morning. That, fingers crossed, should all the second round to be completed today. After that happens, the celebrities will be back on the course to continue their rounds on Saturday. Speaking of the weekend, once we get there, the weather should be back to being its normal Palm Springs-beautiful. -- Brian Wacker

YOU TWEET, WE ANSWER (3:10 p.m.): "What are players doing to pass the time during all the rain delays?" -- @jpalopoli

I'll refer to another tweeter, Rich Beem (@Richbeem), who basically said yesterday, not much. He was referring to Palm Springs being the golf mecca that it is, so when it rains as much as it did that kind of puts a damper, so to speak, on things.

Bubba Watson, on the other hand, spent time making more videos to post on his own Twitter account (@bubbawatson), and he continued to profess his love for the Ellen DeGeneres Show and his desire to be on it.

Mostly, though, players do what anyone would do when the heavy stuff comes down: hang around the hotel, go to a movie, read PGATOUR.COM. -- Brian Wacker

BOGEY-FREE RUN OVER (3 p.m.): It took all of two holes today for Shane Bertsch's bogey-free week to end. What's surprising is that it came on the Palmer Course (the easiest of the four) and on the par-5 second. Bertsch, whose best career finish on the PGA TOUR is a tie for fifth at the 1996 Greater Vancouver Open, went over the back of the green on his approach shot on the 505-yard hole, then was unable to get up and down to save par. Bertsch still has the lead, but will need to make a decent number of birdies on this course to still be in that position at the end of the round. -- Brian Wacker

MORE RAIN (2:45 p.m.): While the grounds crew has done a tremendous job to get the four courses at the Bob Hope Classic playable today, there's only so much they can do. The courses are at their saturation point from all the rain that's fallen. That means if about a quarter-inch of rain falls today -- and it's been raining for about the last 30 minutes after a sunny morning -- play could be suspended again. After all, there's only so much water a sponge sitting under a running faucet can take and that's what officials are dealing with at La Quinta. -- Brian Wacker

COURSE BREAKDOWN (2:35 p.m.): Location, location, location. With players scattered all over the four courses at PGA West -- Palmer, Nicklaus, Silver Rock and La Quinta -- it'll be important to take advantage where they can. Specifically on the Palmer Course which played as the easiest in the opening round. How will it play today? We'll find out, but historically the Palmer Course is the place to make your move, while Silver Rock is by far and away the most difficult of the four. See below for more. -- Brian Wacker

Course breakdown: Round 1 stats

Course	2010	2009
Palmer Private	69.531	67.469
Nicklaus Private	69.594	66.719
Silver Rock	72.000	68.594
La Quinta CC	69.688	N/A

HOPE FOR THE HOPE (2:30 p.m.): How bad are conditions in La Quinta? In addition to today's tee times being pushed back 2 � hours, the amateurs got scrubbed and will resume play Saturday. It's all in the hope of finishing the Bob Hope Classic by Monday. Also, players went off split tees in twosomes on all four courses this morning.

Normally, the area averages about 1 � inches of rain for the year. Thursday alone, it got over 2 inches. That had the grounds crew out in the wee hours of the morning and has the field playing lift, clean and place.

All this might be good news for Shane Bertsch, who opened with a 10-under 62 on Wednesday. You have to think that 62 will go an even longer way in a week like this, even at the Bob Hope Classic, which is notorious for being a birdie-fest.

One interesting side note on Bertsch: Before he turned to golf, he was a top junior tennis player. Why did he switch from tennis to golf? He lost a big match to Andre Agassi. -- Brian Wacker

Players We're Watching

Tee time	Players
2:10 p.m. ET, Hole No. 1, Palmer Course		Shane Bertsch Bertsch has been off the TOUR for awhile, but he got his card back at q-school and has a lot at securing his future this week after a sensational 62 on Wednesday.
2:50 p.m. ET, Hole No. 1, Silver Rock		Bubba Watson Bubba had a bogey-free 66 on Wednesday that included only 28 putts. He's gone 109 starts without a win ... is this the week?
3:10 p.m. ET, Hole No. 10, Palmer		Alex Prugh This Washington State native is only two shots back of Bertsch and should have no problem playing in the wet and cool conditions in Palm Springs.