LOS CABOS, Mexico — At 41, Camilo Villegas says his memory isn’t what it used to be.
“Don’t ask me my birdies because I don’t remember them,” he joked after the round with a member of the media.
It’s doubly hard for Villegas because he’s made so many birdies, shooting his second straight 64 on Friday at El Cardonal at Diamante, a course designed by Tiger Woods and the host of the PGA Tour’s World Wide Technology Championship.
Competing on a sponsor exemption, Villegas began his second round on Friday with an eagle-birdie-birdie start and finished with three birdies to boot. In doing so, he set his career-low 36-hole score on the Tour with a total of 128, two strokes better than Matt Kuchar and three better than Justin Suh, who made a career-high nine birdies in the second round, and Stephan Jaeger, who aced the 11th hole in the first round.
Villegas also was two strokes better than his previous best start to a Tour event at the 2020 RSM Classic. It marks Villegas’s eighth 36-hole lead and first since the 2010 Honda Classic.
Asked to recall the last time he had such a hot start to a tournament, Villegas showed his memory isn’t totally shot, recalling a Hooters Tour event in Orlando in 2004 that he won by 10 strokes shortly after flaming out of second stage of Q-School.
“I shot 61 first day, 62 the second day,” he said. “It was like a bittersweet win.”
It’s been more than nine years since Villegas, a four-time winner on Tour, has claimed victory and being in the hunt for another title couldn’t come at a better time. He entered the week ranked 223 in the FedEx Cup standings and had missed the cut in his last three starts.
But that was then — this week he’s made so many birdies it’s hard to keep track of them all.
The second round was suspended due to darkness at 5:52 p.m. local time (8:52 p.m. ET) with three players still on the course. There were 74 players who made the cut at 5-under 139. The field started with 132, including three amateurs, none of whom made the weekend.
Here are four more thing to know about the second round of the World Wide Technology Championship.
Kuchar hearts Mexico
When Matt Kuchar heard that the WWT Championship was moving from Mayakoba Resort near Cancun to a Tiger Woods-designed course in Cabo, he said, “a little piece of him was sad.”
After all, he was a former champ at El Camaleon in 2018, which fit his game to a T. Turns out he likes this one, too. Kuchar birdied two of his last three holes on Friday to post a second straight round of 7-under 65.
“It’s got to be in the water, right? Mexican water,” he said of why he has so much success south of the border.
Kuchar is one of nine players in the field that has hit all 28 fairways and he missed just one green in regulation of Friday.
“I left for this trip kind of saying to my family I’m excited about the week, my game’s in good form, I’m looking forward to getting down to Cabo and hopefully playing some good golf. Never know. I’ve certainly said that before and it’s not gone quite as planned. Golf is a fickle creature. But I’ve been feeling good for a while about the state of my game… it’s turned out to kind of be holding true.”
Hickok has no hiccups in bogey-free rounds
Kramer Hickok arrived on Friday to the southernmost tip of Cabo and got to work learning the course for this week’s WWT Championship. That’s proven to have been a smart strategy through 36 holes at El Cardonal at Diamante, where he’s yet to make a bogey and posted rounds of 65-67 to sit T-5.
“Really just spent as much time around this place as possible,” Hickok said. “We were the only ones out here so we could spend six, seven hours out here sort of getting to know the place. It’s a new golf course for all of us so I kind of feel like it’s an even playing field where some of the guys with a lot more experience don’t have a lot more of the knowledge, everyone’s starting at the same spot, so I just really wanted to get a jump start on that.”
The only other time he’s come in ahead of an event that early is back in his Korn Ferry Tour days for an event in Springfield, Illinois, where he finished second.
That’s not the only reason that Hickok finds himself in contention. He recently started working with a new coach, parting ways with Mark Blackburn and hooking up with John Scott Rattan, who works with Beau Hossler and Trevor Cone.
“We had eight-hour days and a lot of major changes and able to get a lot of things done and things that I’ve wanted to do with my golf swing and I feel like this is the best I’ve hit it in my life,” Hickok said.
Hickok changed his setup, which is giving him better spine tilt so he can hit the ball higher.
“The big thing is I’m getting my hips more lateral through the ball. Before they just spinned,” he explained. “If you watch a pitcher on the mound, he’s going to push off the left side and that’s what I feel like I’m doing… It’s the most control I’ve felt about my game in really ever.”
Aberg in trophy hunt yet again
Back in his days on ESPN’s SportsCenter, Dan Patrick would have said of Ludvig Aberg, you can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him.
The Swede has fnished in the top-15 in each of his last six starts worldwide, including a win on the DP World Tour, and is threatening to win his maiden PGA Tour title this week at the World Wide Technology Championship. On Friday, he shot a bogey-free 65, his 11th consecutive round in the 60s, to climb to 11-under 133 at the midway point,
“Today was a lot more stress-free,” said Aberg, who turned 24 on Halloween. “I hit the ball quite well and never really was in trouble.”
The latest proof of his rapid rise from Texas Tech senior in May to tournament winner and member of the European Ryder Cup team, Aberg is considered the betting favorite to win this week.
“It’s nuts,” he said. “You know, if someone asked me that a couple months ago, obviously I would not have believed them.”
While Aberg’s bank account is growing with every strong performance, he hasn’t splurged on anything just yet.
“I’m really bad at that,” he said. “The one thing I’ve bought is a mini iPad so I can watch Netflix when I travel and connect with my Trackman.”
Weekend Plans for Kang
Congrats to Jeffrey Kang, who made his first cut on the PGA Tour, shooting 68 at El Cardonal on Friday to improve to 11-under 133.
The 32-year-old former USC Trojan turned pro in 2014 and previously was a Monday qualifier this season at the AT&T Byron Nelson but he missed the cut.
Kang carded four birdies and an eagle in his qualifying round to shoot 65 and secure his fifth career Tour start. He shot a bogey-free 65 in his opening round and picked up right where he left off with three straight birdies to start his second round.
“To sit pretty close to the leader is also a bonus,” he said. Yeah, it means a lot. I’ve done it a [five] times now, playing on the PGA Tour, and haven’t been really able to push through that yet, so being able to finally do it feels good.”
Kang was the No. 1 ranked high school golfer in the country in 2010 according to Golfweek, and in 2009 was selected to the AJGA’s Rolex Junior All-American first team.
Kang finished second in a PGA Tour Canada event this season, winning a check for $24,300 and earned his biggest payday for winning the 2018 Chengdu Championship on PGA Tour China, 270,000 Chinese Yuan, which he said was in the neighborhood of $30,000-$40,000.
“Hopefully this is bigger,” he said.
