Morikawa breaks Tiger’s 36-hole mark at East Lake and shares Tour Championship lead with Hovland

ATLANTA: One bad shot during practice led to Collin Morikawa spending two hours looking for a fix. And now he has a scoring record at East Lake that previously belonged to Tiger Woods.

Morikawa followed his 61 with another clean card for a 6-under 64 on Friday in the Tour Championship, giving him the lowest 36-hole score at East Lake and a share of the lead with Viktor Hovland going into the weekend of the FedEx Cup finale.

“Sometimes just being out there when you don’t realize that you’re out there for that long of a period, but you find one thing that you hope works,” said Morikawa, winless since the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai at the end of 2021.

“I’ve done that for the past few years, hoping that we’re going to find that one thing that clicks and right now, I’m going to stick with it.”

Scores can look inflated at the Tour Championship because players start at various points under par depending on the FedEx Cup position. Looks were not the least bit deceiving with Morikawa, who shot 125 without a bogey over two days in extreme heat.

He was No. 24 in the FedEx Cup and started at 1-under par. Hovland, who has been hotter than Atlanta dating to the final round in the BMW Championship last week, was the No. 2 seed and began the tournament at 8 under.

They now are 16-under par, two shots clear of top seed Scottie Scheffler. The world’s No. 1 player was running hot under the collar after opening with a 71 that included the worst kind of triple bogey — a tee shot in the water and a three-putt from 15 feet.

Friday was another ball-striking clinic — he missed only two greens — and Scheffler made enough birdie chances for a 65.

The difference?

“I was six shots better,” Scheffler said. “I didn’t hit it in the