ATLANTA — Two years after Henrik Stenson sailed to victory at the Tour Championship, he has another comfortable lead after 36 holes at East Lake with Jordan Spieth is chasing him.
Back then, Spieth was a 20-year-old rookie.
Now he’s the Masters and U.S. Open champion, and he found a spark in a steady drizzle Friday.
Stenson overcame a few mistakes off the tee and was solid on the back nine for a 2-under-par 68, stretching his lead to three shots over Spieth going into the weekend and moving closer to his first win of the year — and a $10 million bonus for claiming the FedEx Cup.
“I didn’t feel like it was my best day, but I managed to keep it together and 2-under around here is never bad,” Stenson said.
He doesn’t know anything different. This was his sixth straight round under par at East Lake, a course where the Swede has led after every round he has played.
Stenson, who went wire-to-wire in the Tour Championship in 2013, was at 9-under 131.
Spieth has made only one bogey over two rounds, and a pair of par saves on consecutive holes on the front nine felt just as valuable as his four birdies in a round of 66. The average score was 71.6 on a wet day that yielded only four rounds under par.
Paul Casey made a bogey from the bunker on the 18th for a 70 and was four shots behind, while British Open champion Zach Johnson birdied three of his last four holes to overcome a double bogey on the par-5 ninth. He had a 70 and was at 4-under 136.
