Nick Taylor and Adam Novak Tied for Lead at Weather Plagued Waste Management Open
The Waste Management Open in Scottsdale, Arizona has recently become one of the most popular venues in the sport of golf, which is largely because of the amazing 16th hole, and it is always a tournament where some form of chaos is bound to occur. This year has been no different so far. Usually Saturday is cut day on the PGA Tour which means that the tournament gets cut in half after the first two days of competition by eliminating the bottom half of players. However, Saturday morning will now be used as an extension of Friday’s second round thanks to a lengthy weather delay that suspended some of Thursday's first round into Friday and another delay on Friday combined with some darkness forced the players to call it a night early on Friday as well.
Weather delays on back-to-back days to start the tournament have been extremely difficult on the players given that golf is a game of routines. Players have their routines that they like to do before, during, and after every round, and the weather has thrown all of that out of whack this weekend. However, the weather has not seemed to bother the two leaders to this point. The current lead is at 12 under par, and the two men tied at that score are American Adam Novak and Canadian Nick Taylor. Novak has been on fire shooting a very solid six under par in both rounds one and two. Between his first two rounds combined, he only had two bogeys and they both came in his first round before going bogey-free in round two. His counterpart Nick Taylor is tied for the lead thanks to a record-breaking and career-low first-round score of 60. That tied the course record at TPC Scottsdale. Taylor went bogey-free while tallying 11 birdies and seven pars to jolt him up the leaderboard after round one. He came back just 40 minutes later on Friday afternoon for round two, and he came back down to earth a bit. He shot a one-under-par 70 to put him tied with Novak heading into the weekend.
Some other players to look out for as the weekend begins are notable names like two-time defending Waste Management Open champion Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Charlie Hoffman, and Sam Burns. All of those players are within five shots of the lead with 36 holes to play. Even though Novak and Taylor have some of the biggest names on tour lurking behind them, at least they do not have to get up early Saturday morning to finish their second rounds. As previously mentioned, this tournament has become a premiere place for golf fans to enjoy the sport they love, and while the weather has turned the first couple of days of this tournament upside down, maybe that is just another element that will play into the chaos that is the Waste Management Open. Regardless, you are not going to want to miss the golf that will take place over the next two days in Scottsdale.
