{"id":53993,"date":"2026-08-21T18:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T18:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/53993\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T18:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T18:51:20","slug":"2026-bmw-championship-j-j-spaun-gains-separation-in-st-louis-with-front-nine-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/53993\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 BMW Championship: J.J. Spaun gains separation in St. Louis with front nine 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS \u2014 J.J. Spaun\u2019s front-nine 30 helped break up a five-way tie atop the leaderboard<\/a> at Bellerive Country Club.<\/p>\n

As the morning turned to afternoon at the sun-soaked BMW Championship, the 2025 U.S. Open winner made the turn at 11 under on the tournament without a blemish on the card through half of his second round on Friday.<\/p>\n

Like first-round co-leader Gary Woodland<\/a>, Spaun was mistake-free through 17 holes on Thursday only to bogey the final par-4 18th. <\/p>\n

Something about the front nine suits Spaun. He recorded three consecutive birdies before making the turn in his first round. On Friday, he did one better \u2014 circling four straight holes, Nos. 3 through 6. <\/p>\n

He opened his back nine with a bogey at the par-4 10th and ran into a trouble again at the par-4 14th. He sits at 10 under with four holes to play.<\/p>\n

Michael Thorbjornsen and Patrick Cantlay are the clubhouse leaders at 8 under.<\/a> Both are battling to make it to the Tour Championship in East Lake. Thorbjornsen ranked 41st in FedExCup scoring<\/a>, while Cantlay sat 43rd entering the week. Each carded a 4-under 66 on Friday at Bellerive.<\/p>\n

Thorbjornsen and Cantlay are both currently projected to finish on the inside of the top 30<\/a>, bumping out \u201cbubble\u201d players Bud Cauley and Rickie Fowler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say almost regardless of where I\u2019m at \u2014 top of the FedExCup or on the bubble, I don\u2019t really think about it,\u201d said Cantlay, who\u2019s six birdies on the back nine led to the day\u2019s only other 30. \u201cI definitely know the best way to move up that board is to play well this week and so I just put all my attention there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy and Chris Gotterup also grabbed a share of that lead Thursday and are still on the course. Woodland birdied his first hole and sits at 7 under through five holes. Wyndham Clark \u2014 the final of the five co-leaders \u2014 is set to tee off 2:33 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"BMW<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The BMW Championship continues Friday in St. Louis where the top 50 players on Tour are vying for a spot at East Lake next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 J.J. Spaun\u2019s front-nine 30 helped break up a five-way tie atop the leaderboard at Bellerive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1561],"class_list":["post-53993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-j-j-spaun","tag-j-j-spaun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}