Alex Smalley got off to a great start, but made a wobbly finish to his second round Friday at the St. Jude Championship.
The Jamestown golfer and Duke graduate birdied three of his first four holes and added a fourth at No. 9 to shoot up near the top of the leaderboard, only to drop seven strokes back at the end of the day after missing a pair of par putts of less than 5 feet down the stretch.
Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffer posted 9-under-par 61 at TPC Southwind in Memphis for an 11-under 129 total. Smalley fired 68 in both rounds.
Sungjae Im and Victor Hovland are three behind, and Ludvig Aberg trails by four shots. Smalley is tied for 14th place. Raleigh’s Ryan Gerard is even-par after consecutive rounds of 70 and Ben Griffin of Chapel Hill, another former UNC player, is 4-over.
The top 50 players in the FedExCup standings advance to next week’s second playoff round at Bellerive Country Club outside St. Louis.
