Seamus Power was brilliantly soaring high on the board with two eagles on day two of the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation course in Hawaii.
Power eagled the fifth and 15th holes and grabbed four other birdies in a blemish-free second round of an eight-under par 65 to jump 17 places and into a share of eighth place in the no-cut, 39-player, winner’s only event on the island of Maui.
Aussie Cameron Smith continues to show the way adding a 64 to his opening score of 65 and lead the field by three shots with an impressive 17-under par two-round total.
Smith again struggled from the start in dropping shots at the opening two holes before also eagling the par-5 fifth hole for a second day running and then also producing nine birdies including birdies at his closing four holes
“I didn’t really feel that comfortable on the range this morning and it kind of showed those first couple,” said Smith. “I figured it out by the 4th or 5th and was able to get on a bit of a roll with the putter as well.
Ireland’s Seamus Power soaring with two eagles on day two of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. (Image Getty)
“You would like to think, I’ve been playing golf basically my whole life, I could figure it out pretty quickly, and like I said, I figured it out within a few holes, started to feel really comfortable there, especially with the driver. Yeah, then the putter felt good the whole day”.
World No. 1 Jon Rahm and American Daniel Berger continue to be sharing second place with the duo now producing four rounds of 66 between them to be at 14-under par.
Power’s round was highly impressive and with the West Waterford star looking much sharper than a day earlier, and also looking very much at ease and confident in such winning company.
“It was all around a good round. It was, everything was kind of going pretty well,” he said. “I made a couple of eagles on the par-5s, couple putts that could have been here or there, but overall it was very steady, didn’t miss a whole lot, wasn’t really in trouble at all, hit a lot of greens, and yeah, I got a nice putt there on the last to finish it off.
“I also drove the ball better today. I had a couple of loose ones yesterday and I kind of got those ironed out. Kind of three loose swings yesterday cost me four or five shots and that was basically the difference between yesterday and today”.
Power set-up his good score with a birdie on four and then landed his second shot at the dog-leg par-5 fifth hole to officially two-feet and 11 inches for a near tap-in ‘3’.
“I hit a good tee shot on five for a second day, and again, I was lucky”, he said. “I left myself a very good number and hit one of the best shots of the day, a nice 5-iron into, it was close, maybe 3 feet”.
He then birdied the sixth before landing a 9-iron second shot to 25-feet at the ninth for birdie before a run of five pars ahead of holing a superb 10-footer for his second eagle of the round at the 15th.
“I hit a very good tee shot again at 15 and it was right in between numbers, I went with like I tried to hit a hard 5-iron, it’s on a down slope, and you’re trying to get to an elevated green, so just tried to hit a little bit harder, so a little more flight on it, and was able to keep it on the front level there and knocked in a very nice putt from 12 feet” he said.
Coming to the downhill 18th, Power let loose with a 363-yard drive and with his second shot just right of the green from where he chipped to 10-feet and delighted in rolling-in the fourth birdie of his day.
With two rounds to play and just four behind second place, Power is naturally excited at what lays ahead, and with a top-three likely to see the Irishman burst into the top-50 on the World Rankings.
“As you see today, the scoring going to be low, like even, like obviously it’s great to get to 10-under second round, but you’re not winning this unless somewhere in the 20s, you know”, he said.
“So it’s kind of — it doesn’t leave me a lot of margin of error after yesterday, I kind of knew that, so today was a good step to getting back into it, but I’m going to need two more something similar to kind of give me a chance.”
