Another day, another group of players gathered at the top of the leaderboard at the 2025 Hero World Challenge. Akshay Bhatia, Hideki Matsuyama, Windham Clark, J.J. Spahn and Cameron Young make up the five-head monster who sits at 10 under en route to play at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas.
Bhatia bounced back from a bogey on the penultimate hole with a birdie on the final hole to join the other four at the top. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler stumbled slightly with a double bogey on the 16th due to a wayward drive, dropping from 11 under par to 9 under par before finishing.
Scheffler is tied for sixth with Alex Nolen and Sepp Straka, while Justin Rose started the weekend with an opening 68 and two more to go on Friday to come within two points of the lead.
“I think if we play well, we can always get some good momentum,” Scheffler said. “If this wasn’t a good week, I wouldn’t think about it too much and I wouldn’t try to push that momentum further. But overall, I feel like it’s a good place to check out my game and get ready for the season. It feels like a good warm-up event.”
Scheffler’s Ryder Cup teammate Young was the biggest mover on the team, posting a 70 in the first round followed by a 64 in the second round, the worst of the 20 players in the second round. The big-hitting right-hander started the day well, but shifted up a gear near the turn, finishing 12th-17th at 6 under. If not for the bogey at the end, Young would have posted a sub-30 score on his second ninth.
“I had some late putts, but as I said to Kyle yesterday, this was one of those courses where I felt like I played pretty well and was comfortable shooting 4, 5, 6 under. Yesterday, the score made me feel like 2 (under) was a bit of a drag,” Young said. “But the reality is, every day here it’s just one hole after another that starts to feel easy and it’s not that different from yesterday. I feel like I played pretty much the same and just made a few putts down the stretch.”
Clark, Young’s co-leader, said he hasn’t been putting well through two rounds, but the stats back up his idea, as he ranks 16th out of 20 with the putter in hand. Coincidentally, it is Spawn’s other co-leader who ranks last in this field, making it a risky proposition going forward if the current U.S. Open champion looks out for that club.
But for Clark, all of his plays come from his full swing. The three-time PGA Tour winner notes that he’s started working with a swing coach for the first time in a while, making sure to take only one swing he has in mind to the golf course and leaving the rest on the range. And so far, it’s been an idea that has worked for him.
“Right now, when I’m playing, I’m just thinking about my swing,” Clark said. “Just like when I’m on the practice field, I think of a few things I want to do. And when I’m playing, I keep my face open, just thinking about heel connecting to toe. It’s just one simple thought, and that’s what I’m working on.”
Young’s year?
Young, a breakout star coming out of the Ryder Cup, has been in good form in his matches over the past two months. The winner of the Wyndham Championship is one of the leaders in the Bahamas and has the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of previous tournament champions, using this event as a springboard for next year.
Hovland won the tournament in 2022, the year before he won the FedEx Cup, but Scheffler used this week to test out some tweaks to his game for the full 2024 and 2025 seasons. Young seems to have a similar mindset about these 72 holes and how valuable they can prove despite their laid-back nature.
“It’s certainly a possibility. I’m not using the week as a practice, but I’m using the week to build on some of the things I’ve been doing, rather than looking at results, just because I haven’t played in the last few months,” Young said. “So this is just an opportunity to continue building on what we’ve been doing mentally. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to dictate the outcome. I think it’s going to be how we go through the process and how we attack the golf course.”
Possible bookends
Matsuyama caused a stir in the opening week of this year with a record-setting performance at Sentry en route to victory, but has not been heard from since. The Japanese native, who hasn’t had a top-10 finish in a PGA Tour season since his win at Kapalua, is looking to close out 2025 in style with one more win this week.
What was interesting about Matsuyama’s play through 36 holes was how he got the job done. He’s at the top of the field in drive accuracy and is in the top five in putting thanks to Friday’s performance, but he’s near the bottom in terms of iron play, which is his usual strength.
“I’ve been working on everything…I got my first win in Hawaii, but I didn’t play well the rest of the season,” Matsuyama said. “So I’ll try to play well the next two days and look forward to next season.”
