Taylor leads in just second event

Vaughn Taylor, playing in just his second BUY.COM Tour event, finds himself in an unfamiliar position atop the leaderboard at the $400,000 BUY.COM Upstate Classic.

Taylor carded rounds of 65-66 to make his first cut at 13-under-par 131. He leads Chris Smith (67), John Wilson (68) and Timothy Straub (63) by one stroke and Randy Leen (67) by two. Charles Warren (66) and Craig Kanada (68) sit alone in fifth and sixth, respectively, at 10 and 9 under. Seven other golfers are tied for eighth, five strokes behind the leader.

Play was delayed for more than 90 minutes due to rain and lightning at the Verdae Greens Golf Club.

The advantage seemed to go to those playing in the Thursday afternoon/Friday morning groupings as nine out of the top 12 players came from those times. One trio in particular, Taylor, Leen and Chris Tucker, combined to shoot 23-under-par.

"It's awesome when you are paired with someone good because you just feed off each other," Leen said. "It always seemed like he would make a birdie then I would. He'd make a birdie and I said to myself, 'Let's go.'

"He played so solid. He could be 16 under right now. He hit every shot at the pin. He was making every putt. And I told him around the 13th hole, when I was 8 or 9 under, 'I feel like a hack out here.' He's just making everything. "He's just so smooth. Never really made a mistake. So solid."

Taylor, a conditional member of the BUY.COM Tour in 2000, did not get into his first tournament until last week's BUY.COM Hershey Open, where he missed the cut after shooting 8-over par. He spent the first half of the year playing on the Hooters Tour and currently ranks in the top 10 on its Points Championship list.

"This is only my second BUY.COM Tour event so I have no experience with the lead out here," said Taylor, an Augusta, Ga. resident and former Augusta State University student. "But I have had the lead a few times in tournaments in the past and hopefully I'll do OK. Just relax and play golf. I'm only halfway home.

"It was a lot of fun. Randy and I had a good time together. "He's playing well and we were both kind of laughing and joking and having a good time."

Straub was also having fun Friday as he turned in the best round of the tournament to date -- a 9-under-par 63 with no bogeys. That ties the tournament record for the lowest second-round score set by Mike Small in 1996.

"I was just hoping to make it (the cut) at all because I was at 3 under and I thought anything under par would probably make the cut. So that was good," said Straub, a veteran of the Hooters Tour who is playing in his first BUY.COM TOUR event this year. "Then I parred Nos. 1 and 2, then birdied Nos. 3-6 and that really got me going."

Wilson, Thursday's leader, had the lead by himself at 13 under when he approached the 17th green. It was there that he made his first major mistake of the tournament.

"We made a bad swing there on No. 17 tee and really paid the price," he said. "So I made double-bogey on No. 17 sitting 5 under for the day. It was just one of those things. I hadn't really hit a bad shot in two days. We caught a 3-wood off the heel, it caught a tree and the cart path and a couple of rocks and the next thing you know I was in the trees and I couldn't get out."

Smith, who already has four runner-up finishes in 2000, continued to do damage to the 7,041-yard course recording rounds of 65-67.

"No bogeys," said Smith, who has strung together 33 consecutive holes without a bogey. "They were making fun of me last night on The Golf Channel because they said that I said, 'It was a stress-free 65', and they said 'How could it not be?' It just has been. Today was the same way. It's just been really easy.

Email this page to a friend | Return to top of page