Rain Falls, Scores Drop At AT&T

Pernice Sets Event Record, Shares Lead With Overton

Proud old Congressional Country Club took a morning and late-afternoon soaking and an all-day pounding during the second round of the AT&T National yesterday. Call it the Black-and-Blue Course after a day of sublime scoring that featured a tournament-record 7-under-par 63 from Tom Pernice Jr. and a 65 from third-year pro Jeff Overton. Both shared the 36-hole lead at 9-under 131.

They held a three-shot advantage over their closest pursuers, 23-year-old Anthony Kim (67), a rising star of American golf, and 39-year-old journeyman Cliff Kresge (65), tied for third at 6-under 134 after finishing in fading light at the end of the storm-interrupted afternoon portion of the program.

An Independence Day crowd of 23,530 was on the grounds, about 5,000 fewer than the same non-holiday Friday a year ago, when tournament host Tiger Woods, out this year because of a knee injury, was in the field. If fans stayed long enough, they witnessed some natural fireworks when play was temporarily halted at 4:50 p.m. because of lightning and thunder overhead. Play resumed 1 hour 40 minutes later with hardly anyone left on the grounds save for the players and their caddies.

Moderate rough, rain-softened greens and silky-smooth putting surfaces combined to create ripe scoring conditions in which Steve Stricker, the 2007 runner-up, and John Merrick, who tied for sixth at the U.S. Open two weeks ago, shot 64s. They were in a seven-way tie for fifth at 5-under 135, four off the lead in a group that also included Fairfax native Steve Marino, the first-round leader who shot an even-par 70.

Merrick's round, which began on the back nine, started to soar with an eagle 2 from 127 yards out in the 18th fairway, a pitching wedge shot that bounced six feet from the flag -- an American flag, atop all the flagsticks on July 4 -- spun sideways and rolled into the cup. Then it got even better. Playing in the same group with Marino, he played his last five holes in 5 under, finishing with a snaking 45-foot eagle putt at the 602-yard No. 9.

Marino saw his gallery numbers and his bogey total swell significantly, but his birdie total dropped by two from his bogey-free 65 on Thursday. Still, the former University of Virginia golfer remained very much in contention for his first PGA Tour victory, despite three bogeys.

"Even par out here is not awful," Marino said. "I was shaky in the beginning and hit it in the rough a lot. On this golf course, I don't think you can push it. If you start pressing and going for pins, that's when it steps up and bites you."

Defending champion K.J. Choi's winning 72-hole score was 9-under 271 in the inaugural 2007 event at the Bethesda course. But unless someone can figure a way to firm up the soggy greens and add another two inches to the primary rough overnight, the remaining 83 players in the field who made the cut of 3-over 143 should continue going lower into the sub-par red numbers over the next two days. Sixty-one players posted even or under-par second rounds.

That's precisely what Pernice, a 48-year-old veteran who joined the PGA Tour in 1986, was doing in his round of 63, the lowest score in Woods's signature event in the six rounds played here over the last two seasons. Matt Gogel had an 8-under 63 in the first round of the 2005 Booz Allen Classic on a Blue Course that played to a par of 71, one more stroke than the current par-70 configuration.

"The wind is not blowing and the greens are pretty soft, so you're going to see some good rounds today," Pernice said after finishing early in the afternoon, about three hours before play was suspended. "Yesterday was pretty difficult. The greens got crunchy and got firm and not as smooth. But today with the moisture in the air and the rain, they're going to be pretty nice all day."

Pernice had eight birdies -- four with putts of three feet or less -- and a bogey, despite a bad left hip that has plagued him since he showed up Tuesday for the practice rounds.

Overton, a 25-year-old native of Evansville, Ind., began the week by discovering his missing golf game in a British Open qualifier Monday at TPC Michigan in the Detroit suburbs. After not making the cut in six of his last seven PGA Tour events, Overton shot 14-under 130 over 36 holes to qualify for his first British Open appearance, then continued his torrid play at Congressional with his first two rounds in the 60s since late April.

"I've been working real hard on the golf swing and hitting the ball just a little bit further, especially with the irons," Overton said. "I've hit a lot of great shots the last few weeks, [but] it's been frustrating lipping out a lot of putts. At the British Open qualifier, I shot 9 under in the first round . . . saw the ball go in the hole a few times and it opens the floodgates mentally. . . . Something just clicked there."

The clicking continued in a second round that included four birdie putts inside 10 feet and a 40-footer at the 489-yard 11th hole. Overton is tied for second in the field in reaching greens in regulation, missing only seven. Over two days, he's had 10 birdies and one bogey, and needed only 27 putts yesterday.

Overton is one of the longer hitters on tour and said that may stem from learning how to play golf on the 6,300-yard Fendrich municipal course back home in Evansville.

"I really learned how to use my wedges and the putter," he said, "because I always tried to hit every green" off the tee.

The son of two schoolteachers, he said his father, Ron, persuaded him to give up other sports and focus on golf after he took up the game in junior high school. By his sophomore year of high school, he finished second in the state championship, and golf became his sport of choice, even if he often sneaked out to play pickup basketball at night with his friends after telling his parents he was heading to the gym to work out.

Overton played college golf at Indiana University and likes to laugh that he really got his start in the game in the womb. He said his mother, Sharon, still a fifth-grade teacher, won a nine-hole city championship while she was pregnant.

"She had the biggest trophy in the house until I finally won my first one in college," he said. "We haven't quite been able to do the math on it. I think she shot 50."