St. Simons Island, Ga. – Junior transfer
Pablo Hernandez advanced 30 positions in the individual standings on Friday to guide Western Carolina (574) up two spots in the team rankings, sitting ninth overall after 36 of the scheduled 54 holes at the 2023 Sea Palms Invitational at the par-71, 6,664-yard Sea Palms Resort. Hernandez posted a second-round score of 3-under par 68 to move into a tie for 21st after two rounds.
The third and final round gets underway at 7:30 a.m. with tee times off both the first and 10th tees on Saturday. Live scoring of the final round through GolfStat is available online with a link on CatamountSports.com.
Davidson stretched its tournament lead to seven strokes over second-place Wright State, 541-to-548, as the Wildcats improved upon its tournament single-round low score from Thursday (271) by shooting 270 on Friday. UCF sits in third place, 14 strokes off the pace at 555 with a two-way tie between Jacksonville State and Augusta two strokes in arrears at 557.
Through 36 holes, at least six teams are on pace to break the 54-hole scoring record for the three-year old tournament.
Will Davis of Davidson carded a tournament-low tying individual round of 64 on Friday, matching the 7-under shot by Markus Braadlie of UCF on Thursday to climb 12 positions to sit tied atop the leaderboard with first-round co-leader Erik Jansson of Jacksonville State at 10-under par, 132.
Opening on the front nine, Hernandez charted two birdies against a bogey to make the turn to the back nine at 1-under par. The product of Madrid, Spain, moved to 3-under for the round with a pair of birdies on the par-4 12th and par-5 13th before moving back to 2-under with a bogey on No. 14. He finished his second round with a birdie on the par-4 18th – a hole he bogeyed on Thursday – to shoot 68 for a two-round tally of 140.
WCU's first-round leader
Magnus Pedersen slid into a tie for 35th after posting a 1-over par 72, posting four bogeys against a trio of birdies. He is in the clubhouse with a score of even-par 142. Graduate transfer
Adam Hooker and fifth-year senior
Louis Theys sit in a tie for 60th overall with matching two-round scores of 4-over par 146, with redshirt freshman
Josh Lendach rounding out WCU's scoring five in a tie for 112th at 157. Theys carded an eagle to go along with three birdies while Hooker had four birdies on Friday.
Hernandez has a team-best eight birdies, just ahead of Hooker, Pedersen, and Theys each with seven.
Playing unattached as an individual, sophomore
Kiefer Bulau advanced eight positions into a tie for 43rd with an even-par round of 71 and a two-day total of 143. The King City, Ontario, native charted three birdies and an eagle on the par-5 fourth on Friday before closing with a trio of bogeys that relegated him back to even. Senior
Quinton Metz advanced into 118th overall by cutting six strokes off his first-round score by shooting 78 in the second round.
9 – Western Carolina – 287 – 287 = 574
T21 –
Pablo Hernandez (2) – 72 – 68 = 140 (-2)
T35 –
Magnus Pedersen (4) – 70 – 72 = 142 (E)
T60 –
Adam Hooker (1) – 71 – 75 = 146 (+4)
T60 –
Louis Theys (3) – 74 – 72 = 146 (+4)
T112 –
Josh Lendach (5) – 75 – 82 = 157 (+15)
T43 –
Kiefer Bulau (ind.) – 72 – 71 = 143 (+1)
118 –
Quinton Metz (ind.) – 84 – 78 = 162 (+20)
