Dylan Frittelli may emerge from congested leaderboard to threaten second success

Where to watch

Sky Sports Golf red button, 5pm Saturday

Best bets

Dylan Frittelli to win the Texas Open
2pts each-way 9-1 general

Story so far

Ryan Palmer leads the Texas Open by two shots at the halfway stage - the Texan loving life at TPC San Antonio as he bids for a fourth PGA Tour title at the age of 45.

Palmer, 70-1 at the outset, is no bigger than 9-2 with 36 holes to play in his home state. Former Texas Open champion Kevin Chappell is among a trio tied for second place.

Rory McIlroy suffered a setback in his Masters preparations by performing poorly and missing the cut, while Jason Day, Ian Poulter, Cameron Champ, Charley Hoffman, Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau and Lee Westwood also failed to qualify for round three.

Perhaps the most significant golf over the first two days in Texas came from Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama. The Japanese ace opened with a 74, then withdrew after nine holes of round two despite being one under par for the round, so he clearly has injury issues going into his Augusta title defence.

Leaderboard
-10 Ryan Palmer
-8 Kevin Chappell, Matt Kuchar, Dylan Frittelli
-7 JJ Spaun, Lucas Glover, Charles Howell, Gary Woodland, Brendon Todd

Best prices
9-2 R Palmer, 15-2 G Woodland, 9 M Kuchar, D Frittelli, 12 K Chappell, 20 C Howell, L Glover, 22 B Todd, 25 JJ Spaun, 28 R MacIntyre, 33 bar

Third-round preview

Ryan Palmer has never been the most reliable frontrunner, Kevin Chappell is outside the world's top 500, while Matt Kuchar is winless on the PGA Tour since January, 2019.

Davis Riley (six shots behind), Adam Hadwin (six) and Beau Hossler (five) are a trio who could potentially surge from deep on the leaderboard, but pick of those in the thick of things may be Dylan Frittelli, who could build on his 2019 John Deere Classic success with a second Tour title.

Frittelli, who attended the University of Texas and lives in the Lone Star State, relishes competition in the region where he made his name. Two European Tour wins were followed by that JDC breakthrough and the South African looks extremely dangerous after a bogey-free second-round 66 in difficult Friday afternoon conditions.

The final third-round threeball of Palmer, Chappell and Kuchar is scheduled to tee off at 6pm UK and Ireland time. A sunny, calm Saturday is forecast.

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