Barry Schultz teeing off on Maple Hill White hole 17. Photo: Matt Gregoire, PDGA

After squeezing two rounds into the second day of the 2019 PDGA Tim Selinske US Masters Championships, the leaderboards in many of the 12 divisions saw quite the shuffle. While some movement took place at Maple Hill in the afternoon, it was the short and technical course of Newton Hill in the morning that would cause the most trouble.

“On hole 3, [Johansen]’s putter hit the nub on the top of the basket and rolled about 40 feet down the hill,” said Mike Moser. “Then, mine did the same thing, except mine sat up and rolled to probably 80 feet away.”

That’s an all-too-common story at Newton Hill. In addition to having narrow fairways, the course plays up, down, and across an extremely steep landscape. One missed line or one putt that comes down at the wrong angle can and will often lead to a rollaway that will mean you’re now putting from farther than you were on the throw prior. The good news is, it happens to everyone. It’s just a matter of keeping it clean as often as possible.

Only two players emerged from the slopes of Newton with double-digit under par scores: Barry Schultz with a 10-under par 48 and Connecticut pro Bobby Cowperthwait with an 11-under par 47. This was more than enough to boost them from the chase card to the lead card after the opening round, and they’d continue their trend of outplaying the rest of the field for their second round at Maple Hill White.

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Elaine King finished the day 17 strokes ahead of the rest of the Masters Women 40+ field. 

Once again it was Cowperthwait that shot the hot round in the afternoon, running off a bogey-free 11-under par 45 on the white layout. And once again it was Schultz that turned in the second-best score of the day, this time with a 9-under par 47, matched only by the Masters 50+ leader, Patrick Brown.

Now, heading into the final round on the infamous Maple Hill Gold, Schultz leads by just a single stroke over both Cowperthwait and Johansen, with lefty Alan Hermosillo rounding out the lead card five strokes back. If Schultz can pull off the win on Sunday, it will be his seventh US Masters title out of the nine he has competed in since its inaugural running in 2010.