{"id":1003725,"date":"2026-08-16T04:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T04:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1003725\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T04:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T04:05:14","slug":"former-utah-golfer-tomlinson-surges-to-2-shot-lead-after-36-holes-at-utah-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1003725\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Utah golfer Tomlinson surges to 2-shot lead after 36 holes at Utah Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PROVO \u2014 Blake Tomlinson &#8220;had a good feeling&#8221; that Saturday could be a good round at Riverside Country Club when he birdied the first two holes at Riverside Country Club.<\/p>\n<p>By No. 15, he went for &#8220;good&#8221; to &#8220;contending.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The former University of Utah golfer carded 10 birdies, including a brilliant finish on the par-4, 415-yard 18th hole to surge into the lead at the 100th edition of the Larry H. Miller Utah Open.<\/p>\n<p>Tomlinson carded 10 birdies in his bogey-free round, with few bigger than then par-5, 584-yard 15th hole. That&#8217;s where the Salt Lake City native took his first lead after catching up to former BYU golfer Carson Lundell, who was in a four-way tie for first after Friday&#8217;s opening round and remained there with a 5-under 67 to lead the morning flight.<\/p>\n<p>But Tomlinson&#8217;s been here before. He won the Utah Open in 2022 to jumpstart a professional career that included a pair of Provo Open titles at nearby Timpanogos Golf Course. He plans to stick to a similar routine the night before Sunday&#8217;s final round but with one added caveat: his girlfriend Kate, who caddied for him at Riverside.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll probably grab a good burger after this,&#8221; he said, adding he&#8217;s not superstitious &#8220;outside of the golf course&#8221; when it comes to routines.<\/p>\n<p>Tomlinson, whose 10-under 62 tied the low round of the tournament&#8217;s first 36 holes with former BYU golfer Keanu Akina, found his putter and didn&#8217;t let up as he moved around the course in breakneck course speed on moving day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My short game was really good today,&#8221; admitted Tomlinson. &#8220;I maybe had one tester, and that was it. But my short game was really good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A day after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ksl.com\/article\/51609876\/confidence-back-nine-eagle-has-former-byu-golfer-carson-lundell-sharing-lead-at-utah-open\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">barreling through to 9-under 63<\/a>, Lundell kept his foot down to stay in a tie for second place (two shots behind Tomlinson) with Spanish Fork&#8217;s Jackson Rhees and recent BYU grad Simon Kwon, who shot 6-under 66 on Saturday in his professional tournament debut.<\/p>\n<p>Lundell, a former three-time 5A state champion at Lone Peak just two weeks removed from winning the Colorado Open carded four birdies and an eagle on the par-5, 557-yard 13th hole to surge to 14-under and a one-shot lead after the morning wave.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow BYU alum <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ksl.com\/article\/lehis-lila-galeai-skylines-tyson-shelley-take-top-honors-in-return-to-normalcy-junior-golf-opener\/46747407\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyson Shelley<\/a>, the former Skyline High standout playing less than a week removed from turning pro, shot 4-under 68 for a tie for fifth at 13-under with Draper native Rhett Rasmussen.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ksl.com\/article\/individual-medalist-rhett-rasmussen-leads-byu-golf-to-regional-runner-up-national-berth\/46553321\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">former BYU golfer<\/a> carded eight birdies, including six through the first eight holes as he surged into contention with a strong start.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was just kind of doing everything well: hitting it down the middle, hitting some good wedge shots, and then the putter got hot,&#8221; Rasmussen said. &#8220;It was nice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Homegrown Utahns dominated the top of the leaderboard after 36 holes, which cut the field down to the top 64 and ties at 1-under.<\/p>\n<p>The top 11 golfers all claimed a Utah city as their hometown, down to Colorado pro and two-time Utah Open champion Derek Fribbs in a tie for 12th at 10-under.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are so many good players in this state, and everybody mentions how cool it is to come back to this,&#8221; said Rasmussen, who will head to PGA qualifying school in October. &#8220;It&#8217;s like a family reunion for everybody; it&#8217;s just awesome. And it&#8217;s even better to have it at Riverside, practically my home course.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s pretty cool that this thing has been going for 100 years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"lazyload\"  alt=\"The group including former BYU golfer Rhett Rasmussen (right), Keanu Akina and Cooper Jones walks off the 18th hole after shooting 10-under at the 100th edition of the Larry H. Miller Utah Open, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026 at Riverside Country Club in Provo.\"\/>The group including former BYU golfer Rhett Rasmussen (right), Keanu Akina and Cooper Jones walks off the 18th hole after shooting 10-under at the 100th edition of the Larry H. Miller Utah Open, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026 at Riverside Country Club in Provo. (Photo: Sean Walker, KSL.com)Larry H. Miller Utah OpenRiverside Country Club<\/p>\n<p><strong>Top 10 (and ties)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>128 \u2014 Blake Tomlinson (p)<\/li>\n<li>130 \u2014 Carson Lundell (p), Simon Kwon (p), Jackson Rhees (p)<\/li>\n<li>131 \u2014 Tyson Shelley (p), Rhett Rasmussen (p)<\/li>\n<li>132 \u2014 Braxton Watts (p), Keanu Akina (p), Jackson Mauss (a)<\/li>\n<li>133 \u2014 John Fox (p), Parker Bunn (a)<\/li>\n<li>Full leaderboard available at utahpga.com<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PROVO \u2014 Blake Tomlinson &#8220;had a good feeling&#8221; that Saturday could be a good round at Riverside Country&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1003726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[47],"tags":[419,418,1430,421,420,425,50,422,1371,423,62,399,314,67,132,68,424,313],"class_list":["post-1003725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-cars","tag-classifieds","tag-golf","tag-homes","tag-jobs","tag-local","tag-news","tag-radio","tag-recreation","tag-salt-lake","tag-sports","tag-television","tag-traffic","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-utah","tag-weather"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117103212949770168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1003726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}