AVONDALE, La. -- Hudson Swafford didn't want to dwell on the pressure of the high-stakes weekend that awaits him.
Tied for the Zurich Classic lead after a 6-under 66 on Friday in the suspended second round, the 2011 Georgia graduate, who lives in Tallahassee, Fla., was eager to meet some college friends from New Orleans and take advantage of being in Louisiana during crawfish season.
"I'm probably going to eat some mud bugs with my wife, some crawfish downtown, just walk around," said Swafford, winless on the PGA Tour. "Got to see the sights here and take in the good food."
Boo Weekley also was tied for the lead at 11 under when play was suspended at TPC Louisiana because of the threat of severe thunderstorms. Weekley, tied for the first-round lead after a 64, had three holes left.
Jason Day, ranked sixth in the world, was 5 under for the round through 14 holes, pulling him into a five-way tie for third at 10 under with Brandon de Jonge, Cameron Tringale, former Zurich champion Jerry Kelly and Daniel Berger. Tringale had a 65, and de Jonge shot 70. Kelley was on the 18th green when play was stopped, and Berger had three holes left.
Second-round play is scheduled to resume at 8 a.m. today.
De Jonge, from Zimbabwe, was the co-leader after the first round and might have remained atop the leaderboard had he not narrowly missed several putts. But he was briefly tied for the lead again late in his morning round when he hit his tee shot within a few feet of the pin on the par-3 17th and made his birdie putt. He narrowly missed another birdie putt on 18.
"I gave myself a lot of chances," de Jonge said. "I just didn't make any putts."
The field remained tightly packed with birdies seemingly harder to come by on Friday. Many players cited a combination of wind, soggy turf from recent rains and thick, swampy air as reasons the course to play even longer than usual.
Six players were tied for eighth, just two shots off the lead. They were Chad Campbell, Morgan Hoffman, Steven Bowditch, Justin Thomas, Chris Stroud and David Hearn.
Seven more players were at 8 under, including Marc Leishman, who returned to the PGA Tour this weekend after taking a month off from golf to tend to family when his wife became gravely ill.
Weekley, a three-time PGA Tour winner, continued to play well with new shafts that he credited for a strong first round after missing the cut in three of his previous four tournaments.
Swafford, in only his second season on the tour, had six birdies during his second round.
Bryce Molder (Conway) had five birdies for a 5-under 67 and is at 8-under 136 for the two rounds. David Lingmerth (Arkansas Razorbacks) had a 2-over 74 for the day and is at 3-over 147 for two rounds. Scott Gardiner (Farmington) had a 2-over 74 (154). Ken Duke (Arkadelphia, Henderson State) was unable to complete his second round.
CHAMPIONS TOUR
Cook-Sindelar on top
RIDGEDALE, Mo. -- Former Ohio State teammates John Cook and Joey Sindelar shot a 10-under 60 in better-ball play Friday to take the first-round lead in the Champions Tour's Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf.
Cook and Sindelar birdied the final four holes on Buffalo Ridge's regulation Springs course in the round that was delayed an hour at the start because of rain.
The teams of Jay Don Blake-David Frost and Mark Brooks-John Huston were tied for second. They also opened at Buffalo Ridge.
Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle had the best score at the par-3 Top of the Rock course, a 7-under 47 for nine holes of modified alternate shot and nine holes of better ball.
Larry Nelson and Larry Fleisher led the Legends Division for players 65 and older, shooting a 47 on the par-3 course. John Bland and Graham Marsh were second after a 66 at Buffalo Ridge.
Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were tied for third at 3 under after a 51 on the Nicklaus-designed par-3 layout.
"I think both Gary and I hit the ball reasonably well," the 75-year-old Nicklaus said. "We did what we had to do. We didn't make too many mistakes. We did three-putt a hole on the front nine, first nine we played, but we hit a lot of good shots."
LPGA
Canadian teen shoots 65
DALY CITY, Calif. -- Brooke Henderson, a 17-year-old Canadian, has no photo on the LPGA Tour's website and has to rely on sponsor exemptions to get into tournaments after being denied an age waiver to even play at Q-school.
She shot a tournament-record 7-under 65 to take the lead halfway through the second round of the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic on Friday.
"That's pretty cool," Henderson said about her low score.
That round put her at 9 under at Lake Merced Golf Club, where world No. 1 and defending champion Lydia Ko shot an even-par 72 to remain 5 under after taking the first-round lead Thursday.
Na Yeon Choi, 27, was two strokes back at after a 68. The South Korean eagled the par-5, 475-yard 14th and had three birdies on her front nine.
Yueer Cindy Feng of China stood in third place at 6 under.
The long-driving Henderson eagled the 14th, hitting a 3-wood approach and making a 15-foot putt. She also had six birdies.
She and her older sister, Brittany, tied for second place in last month's Florida's Natural Charity Classic, a Symetra Tour event that earned them each $10,000-plus paydays.
Stacy Lewis (Arkansas Razorbacks), in a four-way tie for ninth place, had six birdies and five bogeys for a 1-under 71 and is at 4-under 140 for the two rounds.
EUROPEAN PGA
Defending champ one back
SHANGHAI -- Julien Quesne shot a 5-under 67 Friday to take a one-stroke lead over defending champion Alexander Levy and Peter Uihlein after the second round at the Volvo China Open.
The Frenchman, a two-time winner on the European Tour, had six birdies and one bogey for an 8-under 136 overall score.
"We had less wind today so it was a little bit easier," Quesne said. "I don't miss many shots so I was very confident."
Levy (68) was also playing confidently, making three consecutive birdies on the back nine to take a one-stroke lead at 9 under, but he tried to hit out of a bunker with an iron on the par-4 16th and went into the water, taking a double-bogey.
Then, on the par-3 17th, Levy hit into the bunker off the tee and two-putted for bogey. He got one stroke back with a birdie on the 18th -- his seventh of the day.
"It's a shame to make a double because I played really good today," Levy said. "Maybe next time I do a different thing, a more safe play out of the bunker on the right, but it's OK."
Uihlein finished his round with an iron shot over a water feature on the par-5 18th that rolled straight into the hole for eagle. It was only the second eagle of the day on the difficult greens at Tomson Golf Course.
"It's funny you can go for really all of [the par 5 holes]. I've gone for all of them this week," the American said. "They're really small, undulating greens. ... You can see from the scoring, it's a tricky little course."
Both Quesne and Uihlein are coming off solid performances last week in Shenzhen, where they tied for fourth. Levy finished last season on a roll with a victory at the Portugal Masters and a tie for second at the BMW Masters, but he's yet to get a top-10 result this year.
Six golfers were two strokes behind Levy and Uihlein on a crowded leaderboard, including Kiradech (68), rising Chinese star Li Haotong (68) and Matteo Manassero (68).
Manassero is trying to recapture the form that saw him become the youngest winner in European Tour history at 17 in 2010. The Italian said his game hit a low point over the past eight months when he failed to crack the top 40 at any tournament and missed five consecutive cuts to start the year.
He said he started to turn things around last week in Shenzhen, where he finished in a tie for 29th.
"I don't want to say I'm out of the woods but I'm definitely in a much better path," Manassero said. "I can still miss, but one mistake doesn't drag me into something that leads to other mistakes. I can handle it. Probably that right now is what makes all the difference."
Sports on 04/25/2015