ie professional Oliver Goss soared to a share of the lead along with Victorian Marc Leishman in the Quicken Loans National on the United States PGA Tour today in just his second tournament as a professional.
Perth's Goss, who turned professional immediately after the US Open, has made a sensational start to his new life. Although he missed the cut on debut at the Travelers Championship last week, he put together a brilliant 66 at Congressional today to go with an opening 70 to share the lead with Leishman (who also carded 66), and Americans Patrick Reed and Ricky Barnes.
Meanwhile Tiger Woods missed the cut on his return to tournament golf, as did the more highly-fancied Jason Day.
A member of Golf Australia's rookie program, 20-year-old Goss did not have a bogey, hitting 14 greens and having just 27 putts. "I didn't have too many expectations,'' he said. "I wanted to make the cut. I missed the cut last week and I was a little bit disappointed. I've come into this week pretty fresh and open-minded and see what happened. I'm on top of the leaderboard. I couldn't be more pleased.''
He was especially impressive on the greens after some work with coach Ritchie Smith recently. "That helps a lot,'' he said. "You know, I've been struggling with my putting. I got together with my coach back in Australia and we're focussing on my putting and it's proving to be helpful this week.''
Goss is playing a series of three PGA Tour events on sponsor's invitations; he has not official credentials to play on the world's biggest tour, a fact that was driven home to him when a car-parking attendant at Congressional would not give him admittance to the players' area earlier this week. Goss had to walk with the rest of the punters that day, although he has addressed the issue. "It was no big deal. I've got a credential now, so I'm all set.''
Goss won the 2012 WA Open as an amateur and was runner-up in the US amateur championship last year. He has been at the head of a cluster of young Australians who are causing excitement in the industry as future superstars of the game. But he is far from the only Australian contending this week, with Leishman also at the top of the leaderboard, and Stuart Appleby just a shot back with two rounds to play.
Leishman also went bogey-free. "I was two-over through 10 yesterday, (so) to finish under par, I was really happy with that,'' said the Victorian. "It's a tough golf course, so to fight back like that was pleasing. And then today I felt there was a bit of a carry-over. I felt good on the range.''
There have already been five Australian winners on the tour this year — Jason Day, John Senden, Steven Bowditch, Matt Jones and Adam Scott.
Woods, the former world No. 1, carded a four-over-par 75 today to miss the cut, but said later he was happy with his progress after back surgery two months ago. He appears certain to resume major tournament play at the British Open Championship at Royal Liverpool next month.