Slowly but surely, Matthew Pavon found the solutions to glean a few birdies in this first tournament of the season PGA Tour what is The Sentry. On the Plantation Course from Kapalua (Hawaii), the Frenchman returned this Friday a score of 70 (-3), his first under par this week. An improvement of four shots compared to the day before due in particular to a less approximate set of irons (-0.163 of strokes gained against -3.077 on Thursday), although his ease on the greens could have been better: “ The putter was cold and I had some difficulty with reading (the slopes, editor’s note) and the grain », he specified on his account Instagram. Despite a day which seemed to take the same turn as the previous one as he accumulated a par and a birdie after 14 holes, the Bordelais found his bearings at the end of the game to sign three birdies in the last four exercises.
The problem for him was that the competition also felt more comfortable on the fairways of the island of Maui with no less than eight players who shared the best card of the day, (64, – 9). Hideki Matsuyama for his part returned a second card of 65 (-8) which allowed him to take the lead at -16 total. The Japanese is not leading far on a lax course where only two players scored above par on Friday, since the entire top 20 is six shots or less behind him. As for the only Frenchman in the running and his current 51st place, he will therefore have to accentuate his offensive character over the next two days to reduce his gap as best as possible in this reduced field of 59 men.
