Winnipeg’s Braxton Kuntz was left with a sour taste in his mouth following the second round of the PGA Tour Americas Manitoba Open on Friday at the Elmhurst Golf and Country Club.<\/p>\n
Kuntz took a double bogey on his 18th hole to card a 72 to sit at minus-3, five shots back of the leaders. It was seven shots higher than his opening round 65 that had him tied for second place, just one stroke off the lead a day earlier.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old had two bogeys and a birdie on his front nine to be at one-over-par at the turn. He had two birdies on his next five holes but finished with a bogey, a par, and a double bogey as he slipped 38 places to sit in a tie for the 40th position heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n
“I barely made it into the clubhouse the last few holes,” said Kuntz. “I made it really hard on myself, but yeah, I was proud of the way that I fought back after a rough start and got it going. And for whatever reason on my 14th hole of the day, I kinda lost it and was just grinding coming in. And I did a pretty good job of it until 18. That was a bit of a head-scratcher but that’s golf, it happens.”<\/p>\n
Kuntz took a penalty stroke on his final hole after hitting his second shot over the green onto the driving range.<\/p>\n
“Obviously it was a bit of a sour taste in my mouth,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re only halfway through the tournament, fingers crossed. So, I got lots of time to get it back.”<\/p>\n
The four-time provincial amateur champion was the only Manitoban to make the cut. Ryan McMillan shot a 74 to end his tournament at plus-9. And Manitoba men’s amateur champ Rory Neill fired a 78 to finish at plus-11.<\/p>\n
There’s a five-way tie atop the leaderboard heading into round three with Austin Greaser (USA), Daniel Sv\u00e4rd (Sweden), Garrison Smith (USA), Adam Duncan (USA), and Chuan-Tai Lin (Chinese Taipei) all at minus-8. First round leader Drew Doyle (USA) dropped to 16th after shooting a 71.<\/p>\n
Play had to be suspended briefly in the afternoon due to inclement weather. The cut line was minus-2. American Thomas Longbella had the best round of the day with a 63.<\/p>\n
No Canadian has won the event since Graham DeLaet in 2009, and Rob McMillan was the last Manitoban to win the annual tour stop in 1996.<\/p>\n
The Manitoba Open is the 11th of 15 stops on the tour this season. The winner of the tournament will pocket $40,500.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winnipeg’s Braxton Kuntz was left with a sour taste in his mouth following the second round of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[56767,56764,56765,56766,240,84],"class_list":["post-179471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-18th-hole","tag-braxton-kuntz","tag-double-bogey","tag-elmhurst-golf-and-country-club","tag-manitoba","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}