2019 AUSTRALIAN OPEN Matt Jones leads as Scott, Garcia miss cut

The 2015 Australian Open Champion Matt Jones is back on top of the leaderboard at The Australian Golf Club.

Matt Jones leads the 2019 Emirates Australian Open by a single stroke at the halfway mark of the tournament.

Jones, the 2015 Australian Open champion fired a second-round 6-under 65 in strangely calm, eerie conditions at The Australian Golf Club.

Jones will go into the weekend at 10-under par overall, a stroke clear of England’s Paul Casey and Australia’s Dimi Papadatos.

Martin Blake’s full wrap-up of the day’s play over at AusOpenGolf.com is a great read.

Jones likes to say that the remodelled Australian, tweaked by Jack Nicklaus in 2013, is not so familiar to him since by the time that happened, he was long domiciled in the United States. He also says that he doesn’t play here often. But the fact is, he doesn’t need to.

Put the Open at The Australian and Matt Jones will always be a chance. Not only that, he’ll still go under everyone’s guard, with his low profile and his quiet way. “I actually prefer it that way,” he said tonight, when he was asked about his lack of publicity or fanfare.

Jones jumped out of the pack late on another hazy day and by the time he hit the fringe of the par-five 18th green in two and two-putted for birdie, he had a 65 that put him on top alone at 10-under par.

Earlier in the day, Paul Casey carded seven birdies on his way to a 6-under par 65 to look dangerous in second place.

Casey seemed pleased with his opening round without ever really catching fire and vowed to keep on doing the same thing on day two, hoping for a better result.

“Yes, insanity won today, because I didn’t really change anything,” Casey said. “The strategy stayed the same, continued to hit very similar tee shots to the tee shots I hit yesterday.”

Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia were the second-biggest storylines of the day with both players getting the weekend off after missing the cut.

Scott’s second round of 4-under par was four shots better than his opening round but it was one shot short of earning a spot in the field over the weekend.

Scott can head to Melbourne early to prepare for next week’s Presidents Cup but it’s clear he would have preferred to iron out any swing faults in Sydney this weekend.