Valspar Championship Round 2: Im Holds at 9-Under as Fitzpatrick's Pursuit Becomes the Real Story

Sungjae Im added a 2-under 69 to his opening 64 at Innisbrook on Friday and finds himself at 9-under 133 entering the weekend, one shot clear of a leaderboard that is compressing nicely right below him. Im’s position is comfortable without being comfortable — the Copperhead Course gives leads with one hand and reclaims them with the other, and a one-shot cushion heading into moving day at a venue this demanding is more of a coin than a cushion.

But the story the second round actually told, if you were paying attention to the right names, wasn’t Im. It was Matt Fitzpatrick, who climbed to 6-under through 36 holes and is now three shots back with 36 holes to play on a course that has been very good to him before. Fitzpatrick moved through Friday’s round with the specific focus of a player who understands exactly what he needs to do and has already decided he’s going to do it. He didn’t make a spectacular charge. He didn’t need to. He made six birdies, took two bogeys, and played the back nine in 3-under on a day when the wind came up and Copperhead pushed back. That’s an advanced move.

Spieth’s Yo-Yo Continues

Jordan Spieth went 2-over on the front nine Friday — which is becoming alarmingly predictable — and then salvaged the round with a 3-under back nine that left him at 4-under for the tournament. He’s six shots back of Im, which is a mathematical gap that requires something extraordinary from a player who hasn’t been ordinary this week in either direction.

The Spieth front-nine situation has become one of the more fascinating patterns on Tour this season: he arrives at courses, plays the first hole like a man possessed, and then somewhere between holes three and eight, the wiring short-circuits. Friday at Copperhead was the third consecutive round in which he went backward on the first nine holes before righting himself on the back. The problem with that pattern at a course like Innisbrook is that the back nine on the weekend is where the tournament is won or lost — and if you’re spending all your capacity just recovering from your own front nine, you don’t have much left for contending.

The Weekend Shape

The cut came in around 1-over, and the players who made it represent a legitimate Sunday leaderboard in waiting. Davis Thompson is at 5-under in third. Andrew Putnam, who opened with a 68, held his position at 4-under. Brooks Koepka is four back of Im, which is the kind of detail that makes Saturday’s moving day interesting — Koepka plays major-style golf on courses that demand it, and Copperhead’s weekend routing qualifies.

The Fitzpatrick narrative, though, is the one worth tracking through the weekend. He has won at Innisbrook before. He played The Players Championship last week in a way that deserved a trophy. He came to Tampa with legitimate motivation and has spent two rounds quietly building toward a Sunday that, if everything holds, will feature him in the final pairing with Im and a three-shot gap to cover. That’s manageable. That’s very manageable for a man playing the golf he’s been playing.

Saturday at Copperhead is moving day. Someone always moves at Innisbrook on Saturday. This week, it looks like Fitzpatrick is already in motion.