NEWPORT BEACH — In golf parlance, it’s a horse race going into Sunday’s final round of the 2025 Hoag Classic.
With perfect scoring conditions and very little wind on Saturday, a birdie-fest broke out at Newport Beach Country Club, featuring numerous players in the lead before hometown favorite Fred Couples and Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez emerged from the pack as 36-hole co-leaders at 11-under 131.
Couples, a two-time Hoag Classic champion bidding to become the first three-time winner of the tournament, shot a 7-under 64 – one shot lower than his age – and Jimenez matched him with a 64 playing in the same group. They will be in the final threesome on Sunday with Freddie Jacobson of Sweden, first-round co-leader and PGA Tour Champions rookie who is one shot back at 10-under after a 4-under 67 on Saturday.
Tour veteran Michael Allen is in fourth at 9-under after a second-round 68 that included a double-bogey on the 16th hole after incurring a two-shot penalty for hitting the wrong ball. The leaderboard logjam includes five players at 8-under, including 2024 Charles Schwab Cup winner Steven Alker, major winner Stewart Cink, and two-time Hoag champion Ernie Els, a World Golf of Famer with four PGA Tour majors on his resume.
That means there are nine players within three shots of the lead going into the final round, but it is unmistakable who the favorite is by the chants of “Fred-die! Fred-die! Fred-die!” reverberating throughout the large galleries.
Couples, 65, draws the biggest moving gallery in Newport Beach every year he plays because he is a resident of nearby Corona del Mar and is an honorary member at NBCC and at neighboring Big Canyon Country Club.
He’s also popular because he’s always in contention at the Hoag Classic when he’s healthy. He has won twice at NBCC (in 2010 and 2014), has two second-place finishes, six top-5s and has finished out of the top 10 only once at the Hoag Classic.
This week, he has been battling a head cold, but it hasn’t slowed him down, as attested by his eight birdies on Saturday.
“I’ve played a million rounds sick . . . I can get around,” Couples said, dismissing his symptoms as annoyances. “My head hurts a little bit, but the weather is perfect. I’m not sick-sick; it’s just all clogged up and I’m a little dizzy. I don’t even know what I shot.”
But he certainly heard the encouragement from the crowds following him.
“There’s always a lot of people here for this tournament; this is one of the top two or three (draws) on the Champions Tour. In Newport, they come out and they’re very vocal,” he said.
“People are rooting for him, but that doesn’t bother me,” said Jimenez, a 14-time winner on PGA Tour Champions, like Couples. “He’s from here.”
At one point on Saturday, there were five players tied for the lead – Jimenez, Cink, Y.E. Yang and Friday co-leaders Jacobson and Brendan Jones – with Hall of Famers Couples and Els among a group of six players just one shot back. The horse race was on.
After some struggles with distance control on his putting in the opening round, Couples solved that by hitting it a lot closer on Saturday, converting short birdie putts on No. 1, No. 3, No. 7 and No. 8 en route to a 6-under 30 on the front nine to tie for the lead.
Aggressive with his driver all day – “I swung as hard as I could all day with the driver,” he said – he crushed his tee shot on the 333-yard, par-4 first hole into the throat of the fairway, between the two greenside bunkers, and chipped his second shot close for a tap-in birdie. He added a two-putt birdie on the par-5 third, then rolled in a 15-footer from the right side of No. 5, and pitched it close for another tap-in on No. 7.
In retrospect, equally important as his fast start was Couples’ scrambling ability when his tee shots strayed right and left from the ninth through the 14th holes – “pulled a few, pushed a few” is how he described it. But he was able to save par after wild tee shots on the ninth hole (where he got a free drop from hospitality tents on the right), 10th hole (in the trees left) and 12th hole (trees left).
Interestingly, after Couples’ three-putt bogey from the fringe on No. 14, the only blemish on his scorecard, he moved back into a share of the lead with a birdie on the par-5 15th after Cink, Jacobson and Jones all missed short putts behind him.
That was the first of three consecutive birdies by Couples – including a 30-footer on No. 16 and a 20-footer on the par-3 17th – that temporarily gave him sole possession of the lead at 11-under until Jimenez birdied the 18th.
Couples has won only one Champions Tour event since 2017, so he is looking forward to another opportunity on Sunday.
“It’s going to be a battle tomorrow with Miguel and whoever finishes up there with us, but I have a good shot,” Couples said.