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Los Angeles - Rickie Fowler fired an eagle and six birdies in an eight-under par 64 on Friday to grab a share of the halfway lead alongside Scottie Scheffler in the PGA Tour event at La Quinta, California.
The top duo in the pro-am event held on three courses in the Southern California desert were tied on 15-under par 129, one stroke in front of American Andrew Landry (64), with American Tony Finau two shots back after a storming 10-under par 62.
"These courses are scoreable, but I feel like it's a fine line between playing well and kind of scraping by," said Fowler, who is playing the tournament for the first time in six years.
"I've done a good job of just kind of picking my way around," added Fowler, who played the Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course, which like the other two in use, La Quinta Country Club and the Stadium Course, is a par-72.
"Two out of three courses down, looking forward to playing the Stadium tomorrow," he said of the course that will also host round four on Sunday.
Fowler teed off on 10 and picked up birdies at 11 and 12 before catching fire coming in. He followed birdies at the first and third with an eagle at the fourth, where he lofted a high approach to six feet and made that for eagle. He added another birdie at the eighth to be the first in the clubhouse on 129.
Scheffler, a Korn Ferry Tour graduate seeking his first PGA Tour title, also teed off on 10 on the Nicklaus course and raced up the leaderboard with birdies at six of his first seven holes.
He slowed with a double-bogey at the 18th, but rebounded with a birdie at the fourth, followed by an eagle at the seventh and a tap-in birdie at his final hole, the ninth - where his approach over the water hazard nearly found the cup for another eagle.
"I feel pretty good," Scheffler said.
"Just the one mishap on 18 but other than that pretty solid."
Landry had nine birdies and a bogey in his eight-under effort on the La Quinta Country Club layout.
Finau, the top-ranked player in the field at 15th in the world, torched the Nicklaus course with 10 birdies, seven of them on his inward run the first through ninth.
"The putter got hot for me on that back nine," Finau said. "I hit it really nicely yesterday and didn't feel like I got what I wanted out of the round. I hit it well again and I was able to make some putts."
Leading second-round scores on Friday in the PGA Tour event at La Quinta, California, on the La Quinta Country Club course, Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course and Stadium Course (USA unless noted, par-72):
129 - Rickie Fowler 65-64, Scottie Scheffler 65-64
130 - Andrew Landry 66-64
131 - Tony Finau 69-62
132 - Bud Cauley 68-64
133 - Ted Potter 70-63, Im Sung-jae (KOR) 67-66, Ryan Moore 68-65, Cameron Davis (AUS) 66-67, Wes Roach 68-65, Chase Seiffert 66-67
134 - Brian Harman 67-67, Maverick McNealy 69-65, Sepp Straka (AUT) 69-65, Zac Blair 64-70, Alex Noren (SWE) 67-67, Michael Gligic 69-65
