Thomasville’s Harris English seized his first solo overnight lead in a PGA Tour event on Friday at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn., with a second round 64. English sits at 10-under par for the tournament and leads his closest pursuer Shawn Stefani by two strokes.

English started Friday with an early morning charge that separated himself from the other three first round leaders before many of them even teed off on Friday.

English got out in front with an electric start which included birdieing the first three holes and eagling one of the courses hardest holes, the par-4 5th, from the fairway for a blistering 5-under start through five holes.

He would add two more birdies and a bogey on his back nine to finish at 6-under par and in position to look toward his first win on the PGA Tour.

“It’s an awesome feeling,” English said of his impressive start. “This is what I play golf for to be in this situation. It’s awesome when everything comes together like it has the last two days.”

On the course English is making a concerted effort to not focus too much on how other contenders are scoring. Instead he is concerning himself more with the execution of his own game-plan.

“You cant really look at the score very much,” English said. “It’s still golf. You’ve still got to hit the shots and play and stick with my game-plan and I did a really good job of that today obviously getting off to a birdie-birdie-birdie start that kind of got me in the mood of trying to go low and that’s what I did.”

English’s 64 at TPC Southwind is extraordinary considering this is his first time playing this course and its event.

“This is my first time playing it so obviously I like it a lot,” English said of TPC Southwind. “It’s kind of old school, I hit a lot of 3 woods and 5 woods off the tee. I only hit two drivers today.”

English only hit two drivers off the tee on Friday because the course is a par-70 layout. For a long-hitter like English it means there are only two par-5’s to attack rather than four that normally come on par-72 courses.

It certainly helps that he is hitting his 3-wood plenty far. On the par-4 fifth hole, which is a converted par-5 this week for the tournament, English drove his 3-wood 302 yards off the tee, leaving a 181-yard 8 iron approach which he calmly canned for his second eagle in two days on the TPC Southwind course.

Even though English missed the cut in his last start on the Tour at Colonial two weeks ago he feels his overall game has been coming around.

“I felt like my game’s been in good shape for a while now especially working a lot last week getting my game ready,” English said.

English attempted to qualify for his first US Open earlier this week in Memphis during sectional qualifying but fell two shots short. However he still took the positives away from the competition.

“That’s how it goes,” English said. “I still feel good about my game, still felt like I could come in this week and play some good golf.”

A two-stroke lead through two rounds over a strong field which includes Phil Mickelson, Brandt Snedeker and Dustin Johnson is some good golf.

“I just need to try to stay within myself,” English said of this weekend’s final two rounds. “Stick with my game-plan and try to execute the next two days and see where it goes.”