Iowa’s Jeff Schmid shot even-par 71 early Friday and heads into the weekend of the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship leading the race to be Low Senior PGA of America Golf Professional at Harbor Shores.
One week after a pair of PGA Professionals made it to the weekend at the 106th PGA Championship in Louisville, Schmid, one of 41 members of the Corebridge Financial Team, will have some company in playing the weekend at the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. Rain suspended play for about 90 minutes mid-afternoon on Friday, meaning the completion of the second round – and cut to low 70 and ties – was pushed to Saturday morning with just two players left to finish their rounds.
But there were several strong performances by PGA Golf Professionals early on Friday, with 12 currently inside the projected cut line, which was sitting at plus-3 on Friday evening.
Florida’s Rod Perry (Crane Lakes Golf & Country Club) set the tone with a four-birdie, no-bogey 67 that took him inside the cutline after his opening 76.
Frank Esposito Jr., Teaching Professional at Mountain Ridge Country Club in West Caldwell, N.J., shot 3-under 68 and will make the cut in the event for the first time since 2014, when he tied for 39th at Harbor Shores. He had missed the cut in his last six KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship starts, so performing well enough to stick around for the weekend was very meaningful.
Esposito, 61, a four-time New Jersey PGA Section Player of the Year and six-time New Jersey Senior PGA Player of the Year, made a putter change on the way to the first tee on Thursday, and it has paid off. He was set to go with a long putter, but found it too heavy as Harbor Shores’ greens began to speed up, so shifted back to a more conventional-style Odyssey mallet just before he played. The move has paid handsomely, with Esposito shooting 71-68. At 3-under 139, he finds himself trailing Schmid by two.
“My caddie looked at me like I had three heads,” Esposito said about the last-minute switch. “Went right in my locker as we were walking and switched it. It's a little lighter, a little shorter and I got better feel with it.”
Esposito has made nine birdies in his two rounds, including three on Friday. This is his fifth trip to Harbor Shores, so he knows what to expect of the golf course and its sometimes confounding green complexes. He played in a U.S. Senior Open qualifier Monday at nearby Point ‘o Woods and did not putt well, so to watch some putts fall has been a nice change.
One highlight of this, his eighth KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, was playing a practice round with the winningest over-50 player of all-time, Bernhard Langer.
“It's just another week to them,” he said. “To me it means more. I don't do it often. I have a real job. So try not to get up, and just try to do what I do like when I'm playing at home in section tournaments – and not try to get overwhelmed with everything.”
By playing well for two rounds, he has earned two more, which is a nice bonus.
“You know, it's nice to make the weekend,” Esposito said. “Making a check (this week). Whoo-hoo! Very excited.”
PGA Professional Bob Sowards, champion of the 2023 Senior PGA Professional Championship at PGA Golf Club in Florida, finished birdie-birdie on his final two holes Friday – the par-4 8th and par-4 9th – to move from 4 over to 2 over and in all likelihood make the cut for the fifth time in as many KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship starts. He tied for fifth in the championship three years ago at Southern Hills.
