No, the Aussies are not in disarray, but they’re looking up at three Texans in the top four players with one lap to go. Perched at the top of the leader board is the improbable Johnson Wagner, the golfer who sounds like a brokerage firm.
No one is selling him short now. After opening with a course-record 63, Wagner has backed it up with two rounds of 69, good for 15 under par and a one-shot lead over Chad Campbell.
Admitting he was “definitely nervous” as weekend play began following completion Saturday morning of the rain-delayed second round, Wagner was planning to take a big dose of basketball to quiet his nerves. “I’d like to just completely not think about golf for the rest of the night,” he said.
“I’m glad there’s some basketball on. I struggled watching TV last night. I’ll watch basketball (the Final Four) and hopefully fall asleep right after the second game. Sleeping through the night would be nice.”
A native of Amarillo who attended Virginia Tech and lives in Charlotte, N.C., the 28-year-old Wagner tied for ninth at Redstone Golf Club a year ago, his rookie season on the PGA Tour. He shared the first-round lead with a 66 and set the Tournament Course record with a 64 on the third round. He also posted a 75 and a 73.
Through three rounds on this trip, he has been a model of consistency, the only man in the field who has finished each round on the sunny side of 70.
Campbell is doing his best to infuse the tournament with drama this year. He may be the hottest player in the field, overcoming an opening 73 with rounds of 64 and 65 to settle for a one-shot gap after tying for the lead on three occasions Saturday. He bogeyed No. 17 to drop one back.
Bob Estes scalded Redstone for a 64, good for a third-place tie with Charley Hoffman. Then came the Aussies. Geoff Ogilvy (66) held down fifth, five off the lead, and Mathew Goggin (72) trailed by one more, alone in sixth.
Wagner, Campbell and Estes were born in Texas and the latter two live in the state. Hoffman, he of the flowing locks, resides in Las Vegas. Like Campbell, he played in college at UNLV. For a little added Texas flavor, former University of Houston and SHO champion Fred Couples tied the tournament nine-hole record with a 29 on Saturday and K.J. Choi, a South Korean who lives in The Woodlands, shot 69 to climb into a tie for 10th with Couples and five others after an opening 74.
Wagner tied for 38th in his first event of the year, the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, and then missed the cut in the next six. In his last two, in Puerto Rico and New Orleans, he made the cut but shot 77 and 76, respectively, in the third round to fall from contention.
He has already soared over a couple of huge hurdles in keeping an even keel after opening with a course-record 63. Defending champion Adam Scott matched that number on Thursday despite a strep throat but the Aussie heartthrob blew up to a 76 on the second round and withdrew Saturday morning, saying he was too ill to continue. Still, female fans could find much to cheer.
Wagner made only one bogey, three-putting the 480-yard par-four No. 5, against four birdies, including three in a four-hole stretch beginning at No. 9. Campbell had a more entertaining day of it, holing an 88-yard shot with a 55-degree wedge for eagle on the par-5 eighth. That followed birdies on three of the first four holes and another on No. 6, where he drained a 62-foot putt. He also three-putted the seventh for bogey. On the back, he again birdied three of the first four; the bogey on the 17th was his only blemish.
A four-time winner on tour, Campbell took the title at the 2007 Viking Classic with Wagner second. Wagner will try to reverse that result on Sunday. The third-round leader or co-leader has won the SHO five of the last six years. Of course, the only unproven player among them was Bubba Watson, who shot 72 on the final 18 last year and finished three behind Scott.
Wagner, who does not rank in the top 100 in any tour statistical category, faces his biggest test on Sunday. Campbell has competed in the Masters five times, tying for third in 2006. A Houston victory would send Wagner to the Masters for the first time. But he was trying not to think about that.
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