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Hisatsune leads Pebble Beach on a gorgeous day with low scores. Scheffler didn't take advantage

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Hisatsune leads Pebble Beach on a gorgeous day with low scores. Scheffler didn't take advantage
Sport

Sport

Hisatsune leads Pebble Beach on a gorgeous day with low scores. Scheffler didn't take advantage

2026-02-13 09:10 Last Updated At:09:21

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Chris Gotterup extended his streak to nine straight birdies over two rounds on two very different courses. He ultimately settled for an 8-under 64 on Thursday in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, leaving him two behind Ryo Hisatsune on a day of gorgeous weather and low scores for practically everyone.

Scottie Scheffler was the exception. He had to birdie the par-5 18th at Pebble Beach to avoid joining the short list — 12 players — who failed to break par.

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Rory McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, hits from the 17th tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Rory McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, hits from the 17th tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Sam Burns hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Sam Burns hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Scottie Scheffler reacts before putting on the 18th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Scottie Scheffler reacts before putting on the 18th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Chris Gotterup hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Chris Gotterup hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Ryo Hisatsune, of Japan, slams his club into the sand of a fairway bunker at the 10th hole after hitting a shot during the final round of the Phoenix Open golf tournament Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Ryo Hisatsune, of Japan, slams his club into the sand of a fairway bunker at the 10th hole after hitting a shot during the final round of the Phoenix Open golf tournament Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

“I feel like typically I'm good at scoring, and today I felt like I didn't score at all,” Scheffler said. “Anything that kind of went wrong seemed to be going that direction. I actually feel like I'm playing pretty well. Just one of those days.”

Hisatsune, coming off two good weeks including a runner-up at Torrey Pines to qualify for this $20 million signature event, had three straight birdies early in his round, made the only birdie on the par-4 ninth and finished with three straight for a 62 at Pebble Beach.

He was one shot ahead of Keegan Bradley and Sam Burns. Bradley played at Spyglass Hill, where the course average was about one-and-a-half shots higher that Pebble Beach.

Defending champion Rory McIlroy, in his first PGA Tour start of the year, had a pair of three-putt double bogeys on the par 5s at Spyglass that caused him to settle for a 68.

Gotterup, who already has two wins this year, made three straight birdies to finish off his victory in the Phoenix Open last week, the last one in a playoff. From desert warmth to the California coastal chill, from carpet greens to poa annua, there was no change in his game.

A short birdie putt on No. 1, a 10-footer on the par-5 second, nearly jarring a wedge on the third, and on it went. Six holes into the round, he had six birdies.

“I was kind of just coasting along,” Gotterup said. “You don't really realize it in the moment, and then when you look up you're like, ‘Wow, I’m 6 under through six.' That's nice.”

Bradley chipped in from just off the green on No. 8 at Spyglass for a birdie-eagle-birdie burst, and he kept a clean card the rest of the way for the best score on the course that typically plays the hardest in calm conditions.

“It’s about as nice of a day as I’ve ever seen out here,” Bradley said. “The greens are soft but that gets them a little bumpy, too. So some of the putts are a little dicey, but definitely scoring is good.”

Pebble Beach can be a pushover with no wind, particularly the opening seven holes. That's where Hisatsune (five birdies) and Gotterup (six) made hay.

Scheffler, not so much.

It started with a clump of mud on his ball in the fairway on the par-5 second that sent his shot some 30 yards left of the green. He picked up only one birdie during that opening stretch, and then a strong breeze was largely into him on the way back in. And he wasn't particularly sharp.

He hit only two approach shots inside 10 feet (and missed them both), and he didn't make a putt longer than 8 feet for his round.

“I guess the challenge is making a bunch of birdies. That was a challenge for me today,” Scheffler said. “I’m looking at the leaderboard right now and it looks like 7 under gets you in the top 10, so scores are pretty low,” he said.

Burns didn't take advantage of the early holes, either. And then he birdied No. 8 over the ocean with a bold approach that settled 12 feet away between the back pin and the right bunker. And with the wind picking up a little strength, he had five birdies in a six-hole stretch to start the back nine. That included pitching in from just under 30 yards on the 13th.

Burns led the field in putting — it helps making from 45 feet on No. 10 and 30 feet on No. 17 — and kept bogeys off his card.

“I made a significant amount of putts and feel like I was hitting it pretty nice. It was a good combination for today,” Burns said.

Tony Finau and Patrick Rodgers each had 64 at Spyglass to join Gotterup in a tie for fourth. A pair of former Pebble champions, Nick Taylor and Tom Hoge, were in the group at 65. Another shot back was Jordan Spieth, who holed out a full wedge for eagle at Spyglass.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Rory McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, hits from the 17th tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Rory McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, hits from the 17th tee at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Sam Burns hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Sam Burns hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Scottie Scheffler reacts before putting on the 18th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Scottie Scheffler reacts before putting on the 18th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Chris Gotterup hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Chris Gotterup hits from the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Ryo Hisatsune, of Japan, slams his club into the sand of a fairway bunker at the 10th hole after hitting a shot during the final round of the Phoenix Open golf tournament Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Ryo Hisatsune, of Japan, slams his club into the sand of a fairway bunker at the 10th hole after hitting a shot during the final round of the Phoenix Open golf tournament Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state's voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground.

The lawmakers' failure to offer a solution after months of debate raises uncertainty about how Georgians will vote in November and leaves confusion that could end in the courts or a special legislative session.

“They’ve abdicated their responsibility,” Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said of inaction by Republicans who control the legislature.

Currently, voters make their choices on Dominion Voting machines, which then print ballots with a QR code that scanners read to tally votes. Those machines have been repeatedly targeted by President Donald Trump following his 2020 election loss, and Trump’s Georgia supporters responded by enacting a law in 2024 that bans using barcodes to count votes.

But state law still requires counties to use the machines. No money has been allocated to reprogram them, and lawmakers failed to agree on a replacement.

“We’ll have an unresolvable statutory conflict come July 1,” said House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who backed a proposal to keep using the machines in 2026 that Senate Republicans declined to consider.

Republican House Speaker Jon Burns said he would meet with Gov. Brian Kemp and “take his temperature” on the possibility of a special session.

Kemp spokesperson Carter Chapman said he Republican governor will examine the situation.

“We’ll analyze all bills, as well as the consequence of those that did not pass,” Chapman said Friday.

House Republicans and Democrats backed Anderson's plan, which would have required that Georgia choose a voting process that didn't use QR codes by 2028. Election officials preferred that solution.

“The Senate has shown that they’re not responsible actors,” Draper said. She added that Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for governor, seemed more interested in keeping Trump's backing than “doing right by Georgia voters.”

A spokesperson for Jones didn't immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.

Joseph Kirk, Bartow County election supervisor and president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, said he’ll look to the secretary of state for guidance and assumes a judge will rule to instruct election officials how to proceed.

“This is uncharted territory,” he said.

Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is also running for governor, said officials are “ready to follow the law and follow the Constitution.”

Burns told reporters that his chamber was seeking to minimize changes this year.

“You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream,” Burns said.

Anderson said without action, the state could be required to use hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots in November.

Election officials say switching to a new system within just a few months, as advocated by some Republicans, would be nearly impossible.

“They made no way for this to happen except putting a deadline on it," Cherokee County elections director Anne Dover said of the switch away from barcodes. Dover said one problem under some plans is that a very large number of ballots would have to be printed.

Lawmakers seemed more concerned about scoring political points than making practical plans, Paulding County Election Supervisor Deidre Holden said.

“If anyone is resilient and can get the job done, it’s all of us election officials, but the legislators need to work with us, and they need to understand what we do before they go making laws that are basically unachievable for us,” Holden said.

Supporters of hand-marked paper ballots say voters are more likely to trust in an accurate count if they can see what gets read by the scanner.

Right-wing election activists lobbied lawmakers for an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots, but the House turned away from a Senate proposal to do so.

Anderson said he wasn’t sure if a special session could escape those political crosswinds, but said Georgia lawmakers must fix the problem.

“This is a legislative problem,” Anderson said. “It’s a legislative solution that has to happen.”

FILE - Voting machines are seen at the Bartow County Election office, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - Voting machines are seen at the Bartow County Election office, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

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