{"id":12107,"date":"2026-04-25T09:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T02:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=12107"},"modified":"2026-04-25T09:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T02:42:09","slug":"fitzpatrick-brothers-hot-on-the-heels-of-the-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/fitzpatrick-brothers-hot-on-the-heels-of-the-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Fitzpatrick brothers hot on the heels of the leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Alex Smalley and Hayden Springer, who tied the tournament record with a 58 in Four-ball play in the opening round, hold a one stroke lead over brothers Matt and Alex Fitzpatrick through two rounds at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Smalley and Springer carded a 70 in the alternate-shot play second round to get to 16-under 128. But the Fitzpatrick brothers combined for a 7-under 65 to pull within a stroke of the leaders with two other pairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Billy Horschel and teammate Tom Hoge are tied in the second spot after carding birdies in five of their last six holes (Nos. 13-14, 16-18) en route to a 4-under 68.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Horschel, the only player to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in both the individual and team format (2013, 2018), is teeing it up with Hoge for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also tied second is Davis Thompson and Austin Eckroat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Defending champion Ben Griffin and teammate Andrew Novak (T26\/-10) birdie the last hole to make the cut on the number and trail by six in bid to become the first team to successfully defend their title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shane Lowry and Brooks Koepka missed the cut by a stroke despite combining for five birdies. They were done in by bogeys on a pair of par 3s: Nos. 3 and 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bogey free Sheehan in the lead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Patrick Sheehan carded a bogey-free 66 at Cordoba Golf Club and leads by one through 36 holes at the 94 Abierto del Centro Zurich presentado por Personal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patrick Flavin and Thomas Ponder are tied for second at 8-under, while four players are T4 and two strokes off the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sheehan is a second-year member on PGA TOUR Americas after earning his card via Q-School in both 2025 and 2026. His best finish in 10 starts last season was T14 at the Bromont Open and he missed the cut last week in the season-opening 71st ECP Brazil Open. In his last summer as an amateur, Sheehan won the 2024 Pennsylvania Amateur and advanced to the Round of 32 at the U.S. Amateur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a four way tie in fourth, with Mason Williams, Drew Goodman, Evan Knight and Eddy Lai all tied at seven under.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vicente Marzilio, one of five first-round co-leaders, is T8 at 6-under, while reigning Latin America Amateur Championship winner Mateo Pulcini (Rio Cuarto, Argentina) made the cut and is T28 at 4-under.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Electrifying Johnson ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Rookie Zach Johnson, a two-time winner at TPC Sugarloaf, scored 15 points in Modified Stableford to take the first-round lead at the Mitsubishi Electric Classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Mitsubishi Electric Classic is being played under the Modified Stableford scoring format where points are awarded or deducted &#8211; Albatross: 8 points, Eagle: 5 points, Birdie: 2 points, Par: 0 points, Bogey: -1 point and Double bogey or more: -3 points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thailand&#8217;s Thongchai Jaidee trails Johnson by a point and is tied with Ben Crane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>World Golf Hall of Fame member Retief Goosen with 12 points is a past winner in 2005 and sits tied fourth with Paul Stankowski and K.J. Choi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Defending champion Jerry Kelly is with 11 points and sits T7 with tournament host and Charles Schwab Cup leader Stewart Cink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Smalley and Hayden Springer, who tied the tournament record with a 58 in Four-ball play in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-12107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-golf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick.jpg",2279,1125,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-300x148.jpg",300,148,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-768x379.jpg",640,316,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-1024x505.jpg",640,316,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-1536x758.jpg",1536,758,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-2048x1011.jpg",2048,1011,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/international\/\" rel=\"category tag\">International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Matt-and-Alex-Fitzpatrick.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12115,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12107\/revisions\/12115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}