Pontus Nyholm of Sweden shot a 6-under-par 65 on Friday and is tied with Noah Goodwin of the United States at 9-under after two rounds of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship at Ohio State’ Scarlet Course.
Goodwin shot a 4-under 67. He and Nyholm hold a two-stroke lead over Frankie Capan III, Cristobal Del Solar, Kevin Roy, Matt McCarty and Richy Werenski. Five more players are tied at 5-under.
“I thought I got off to a decent start,” Nyholm said. “I was hitting some good shots, gave myselfsome nice looks. Made an unfortunate bogey on No. 15, which was my sixth hole or something. Then I just said to Josh, my caddie, ‘Let’s try and hit some good shots here, turn it around a little bit.’ Then I hit one tight on No. 17, the par 3, made a nice putt on No. 18, my ninth, and then just kind of kept it rolling from there and hit some good putts.”
The Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship is the third of four Finals events on the Korn Ferry Tour, and the field was cut to the top 76 players on Friday.
After Sunday’s final round, only 75 will get a chance to play next week in the tour’s championship in French Lick, Indiana, after which the top 30 on the season-ending points list will receive PGA Tour cards for 2025.
Fourteen players already wrapped up their cards, leaving 16 more to be had.
The Finals also locks in the top-75 players for exempt Korn Ferry status next season and the top-100 for conditional Korn Ferry status.
The Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship field includes the top 25 on the Korn Ferry points list. The purse is $1.5 million with the winner collecting $270,000 and 600 points toward his season total.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Pontus Nyholm, Noah Goodwin lead Korn Ferry event in Columbus
