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Good Friday morning, golf fans, as day two of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship gets underway.

1. Noren fires blistering 61

ESPN report…”Alex Noren worked hard on his wedge game and it paid off Thursday in the Butterfield Bermuda Championship with a 10-under 61, giving him a two-shot lead over four players on a calm day at Port Royal.”

• “With barely any breeze, Noren was dialed in. He set a tournament record with 11 birdies, and his 61 broke by two shots his lowest score on the PGA Tour.”

• “Vince Whaley, Dylan Wu, Robert Garrigus and D.J. Trahan were at 63.”

2. Els opens 2-shot lead in Phoenix

AP report…”Ernie Els opened with four birdies in five holes and never really slowed until he finished with an 8-under 63 for a two-shot lead Thursday in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship.”

• “The 35-man field at Phoenix Country Club effectively is playing for second place in Schwab Cup points race. Steve Stricker, who won six times this year, clinched it before the postseason even began and then had to withdraw from the PGA Tour Champions finale.”

• “Stricker said his father was admitted to the hospital in Wisconsin on Monday afternoon and he felt it was best to stay with his family.”

3. Homa starts fast in South Africa

ESPN report…”After his longest break from golf and time spent on safari, Max Homa felt anxious about the state of his game heading into the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa.”

• “He needn’t have worried.”

• “Homa holed a 16-foot birdie putt on No. 18 to shoot a 6-under 66 on Thursday and join Nicolai Hojgaard, Dan Bradbury and Vincent Norrman in a share of the first-round lead in Sun City in the next-to-last event of the European tour season.”

4. Henderson putts for birdie on every hole

AP report…” Brooke Henderson was bothered by seeing so many low scores before she even teed off Thursday on the LPGA Tour. She just went out and putted for birdie on every hole, opening with an 8-under 62 for a 1-shot lead in The Annika.”

• “Henderson made a long birdie putt on her final hole, the par-3 ninth, for a 29 on the front nine to move past a group that included Jin Young Ko and Patty Tavatanakit.”

• “Up until this year, ball-striking has definitely been a strength of mine, and hasn’t been as sharp as I would like the last couple months,” said Henderson, who switched irons recently and felt she was headed in the right direction.”

5. 31-year-old PGA Tour record broken

Golf Digest’s Alex Myers…”It had been nearly a month since Adam Long missed the short grass off the tee when he finally hit an errant drive on the 15th hole of Thursday’s opening round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. By then, however, the 36-year-old had already shattered a 31-year-old PGA Tour record—albeit a pretty obscure one.”

• “Long arrived in Bermuda with an amazing streak of accuracy having hit 58 consecutive fairways. And when he found another one on the par-5 second hole at Port Royal Golf Course, he broke the record of 59 set by Brian Claar back in 1992.”

• “Had everyone not come up and said something to me the last 24 hours, I probably wouldn’t think about it as much as I did,” Long told reporters after his round. “But it was in my mind, for sure, to start. Hit a hybrid on the first and then the second fairway’s really hard to hit. Luckily it was kind of into the wind so I hit a driver and hung in the fairway somehow and perfectly in the middle, so after that I was just kind of coasting.”

6. $1 million…and she’s not even playing this week

Kent Paisley for Golf Digest…”The largest payday being claimed on the LPGA Tour this week is likely to go to someone who isn’t even playing at the Annika driven by Gainbridge, the penultimate event on the 2023 calendar. Angel Yin, the leader of the season-long Aon Risk Reward Challenge, stayed away from Belleair, Fla., in part due to being in position to win the $1 million prize awarded to the LPGA player who has the lowest scoring average on a designated hole from tournaments played throughout the 2023 season (and identical competition takes place on the PGA Tour, Tyrrell Hatton winning this year).”

• “With the Annika event the last one counting toward the prize, Yin (-.933 for the year) can only be pass by Atthaya Thitikul (-.889), but it would require Thitikul to make two eagles at Pelican Golf Club’s par-5 14th over the four days. For the season, the Thai native has made just seven.”

• “I really didn’t think I had a chance, because to me, Aon is a lottery,” Yin said last week with the knowledge she was all but certain to be the 2023 winner. “It’s really difficult to maintain under par consistently throughout the entire year and not mess up.”

7. Lexi resurgent

Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols…”This week, Thompson tees it up in the newly renamed Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, where she’s been runner-up to Nelly Korda the past two seasons. It’s her first start since that inspired run at making the cut on the PGA Tour.”

• “Thompson said Pelican Golf Club, an exclusive club in Belleair, Florida, is in the best shape she’s ever seen it. She appreciates that she can play aggressively here and hit driver more than most tour shops. Her familiarity with Bermudagrass helps massively.”

• “Ruggiero has worked with a number of male touring pros over the years. Former students include Lucas Glover and Robby Shelton. Thompson appreciates his straightforward approach.”

• “Tony will tell you how it is and that’s great for me,” she said. “That’s how I respond. We laugh together and it’s not super uptight.”

8. Why Vijay Singh has red numbers written all over his irons

Our Andrew Tursky…”On Tuesday at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Phoenix Country Club, I noticed that Singh had big red numbers ­written all over his Srixon irons.”

• “After a closer look, it became clear that the numbers were each one digit higher than the “actual number” that’s stamped into the sole of the irons by the manufacturer.”

• “So…what’s the deal? Why the mismatching red numbers?”

• “As confirmed by Brian Rhattigan, who builds Singh’s clubs on the traveling Champions/PGA Tour equipment truck, Singh doesn’t like the look of offset on his irons. In case you don’t know, “offset” refers to the distance between the leading edge of the iron face, and the hosel of the iron. If there’s a large gap between the hosel and the leading edge, then the club is said to have a lot of offset.”

• “Again, Singh does not like offset. He prefers the leading edge and the hosel to match, or even have “onset,” which is when the leading edge is actually in front of the hosel.”

9. Photos from the Champions Tour: Charles Schwab Cup Championship

• Check out our photos from Phoenix!