May 13, 2001

STATE COLLEGE, PA — After a good day at the White Course on Tuesday, Ruthie brought consistency to his game.  And after shooting 4 straight 7's on the first 4 holes, he never looked back.  For the first time in his short career (and life) he never shot over a 7 on a single hole.

"It felt pretty good to finally hit crisp shots on every attempt."

Despite his scoring consistency and the fact that he only duffed the ball once all day, he could not manage to he an accurate shot.

"My six iron didn't like me at all today.  It was always going the distance.  The shots felt clean, but they were all over the place."

Ruthie couldn't have put it better.  He hit a total of 6 sand traps.  Each time he hit it out with the first attempt unlike Tuesday showing (Only beached one hole with 6 attempts to get out for a 10 on the hole).

This is the 2nd straight time that Ruthie has failed to score his average NOOG points.  We can only assume this is why Spackler has lowered Ruthie's stock price again $14 to a season low $131.58.  He is down $39 so far in the Spring Open.

"It felt like I was on the beach next to the ocean golfing.  I was there all day."

The hole of the day was on the hole #5 par 3.  It is a 210 yard stretch for Brian.  When he pulled out his driver, you could hear giggles in the distant crowd.  He whacked that ball a perfect distance, but once again, accuracy hurt him for he was just 20 feet left of the hole on the green.  That par must have sparked something.

He would go on to bogey the next hole and fall apart to triple bogey the next two.  After the front eight, Ruthie was on pace to about a lousy 50.  He knew he couldn't win the tournament with that kind of garbage.  In response, Ruthie never did worse than a double bogey on the back ten holes.

"I was damn consistent; must have been that church this morning."

Despite his great back ten holes, he could not seem to get his 2nd favorite club (six iron) out of the rough.  He chipped much worse than on Tuesday too and only one putt the par 4 17th after 1 putting 4 holes on Tuesday.  The difference was him hitting the first 7 fairways off the drive and finishing with a 9/13 driving accuracy and excellent 8 iron shots.

All in all, Ruthie hit 5 triple bogeys in the first 8 holes, but managed to hold his score to a stunning 103, 33-over, same as his opening 94 point day, but this time for only 77 points.