Scott Hend has won everywhere from Asia to Canada to his native Australia in his long, workmanlike golf career. Now he is in position to contend for his first major championship.
Hend posted a 7-under-par 65 on Friday, the lowest round through two days of the Senior PGA Championship, to share the 36-hole lead with Brian Gay at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla.
Hend was 2 under for his day when he made the turn, but climbed the leaderboard quickly when he got birdies to fall at Nos. 11, 12 and 13. Hend added back-to-back birdies at Nos. 16-17 to shoot 5-under 31 coming in.
He and Gay sit at 10-under 134 at Concession — the new host of the major through 2028 – though both believed they could have been even better.
“I was disappointed in yesterday’s two double bogeys on the back nine, so I wanted to play that nine a bit smarter and a bit better today,” Gay said. “So I didn’t short-side myself as much as what I did yesterday, and it seemed to work out quite well.”
Hend has traveled Asia, collecting 10 wins on the Asian Tour from 2008-19. He has won three times since joining the European Senior Tour. He knows that the leaderboard is packed with challengers who have experience under the brightest lights.
“I haven’t got any majors in my back pockets, so the guys who have majors should be the ones that are favorites,” Hend said.
That includes Stewart Cink and South Africa’s Retief Goosen, who share third place at 8 under par with Ben Crane. Cink shot a 67 Friday while Crane and Goosen posted 69s.
Cink made an impressive eagle at the par-5 17th on a long, uphill putt. That pushed him to 9 under, but he bogeyed his final hole.
“Two bogeys today. You know, obviously you’d like to clean those up,” said Cink, who has won six times since joining the PGA Tour Champions and twice this year but is searching for his first senior major.
“But you know, all in all it was pretty good golf, and I would take days like today pretty much every day for the rest of my career and be happy, because there’s going to be some days that yield some low scores on days like this, and there’s not going to be too many over-par rounds.”
As for Gay, he is in the same bucket as Hend, seeking his first career major of any kind. An eagle at the par-5 seventh was counteracted by his double-bogey 7 at the 17th.
“Another pretty good day. A little volatile. Pretty similar to yesterday, except I butchered a couple of par-5s. Two of them with one bad tee ball, two good tee balls, but other than that, I putted well again.”
Argentina’s Angel Cabrera, the defending champion, went 9 over through 36 holes and missed the cut by seven strokes.
