MEMPHIS — Denny McCarthy took out a Sharpie, signed his two golf balls and handed them to Lisa Redley and Mike Esposito. They were FedEx St. Jude Championship volunteers who walked with McCarthy the entire second round Friday.
Redley was the scoring marker, having switched with someone to be with this group because she knew the mother of Tennessee resident Scott Stallings. Esposito was the standard-bearer, updating McCarthy’s score for the galleries as he rocketed into TPC Southwind’s consciousness.
Neither had any idea who McCarthy was until about four hours earlier.
“Who knew I’d be with the leader,” Redley said with a laugh after McCarthy entered the weekend at 9-under, a lead that held briefly on another afternoon dominated largely by names only the most dedicated of golf fans had heard of before.
The first FedEx Cup playoff event here is set up to produce a wide-open and compelling weekend of action, so long as you’ve got Google ready to search the names of the golfers involved.
For three years of World Golf Championships played in Memphis, the biggest names in the sport littered the leaderboard in Memphis. Brooks Koepka outdueled Rory McIlroy in 2019. Justin Thomas won in 2020. Bryson DeChambeau was in contention on the back nine last year, when Abraham Ancer won his first PGA Tour event.
But this is largely becoming the tournament of McCarthy and Sepp Straka and Brian Harmon, with a few notable exceptions.
It could be due to the odd decision by the PGA Tour to allow lift, clean and play conditions despite no rain in the forecast Friday, therefore making scoring conditions ideal. It could be the absence of the LIV Golf series defections like Dustin Johnson, Koepka and DeChambeau. It could be the bigger field and the lack of European Tour golfers due to the tournament’s new designation as a playoff event.
Whatever the case may be, given the threat facing the PGA Tour these days, it’s for the best if the trend changes. If someone the Tour is pushing as one of its new stars to combat this Saudi-funded competition makes a push during the third round and moves into contention for Sunday.
In the three years since the PGA Tour switched its FedEx Cup playoffs format, the eventual winner of the FedEx Cup did not finish worse than a tie for 11th place in the former Northern Trust Open that the FedEx St. Jude Championship replaced on the schedule this year.
But of all years, this is the one the PGA Tour needs a recognizable name…
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