Xander Schauffele holds a one-shot lead at 12-under-par 130 after two rounds of the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.
Schauffele collected four birdies and a bogey for a 3-under-par 68 on Friday, one day after he shot a 62 to set a new course and PGA Championship record. He holds a one-stroke lead over Collin Morikawa (65 on Friday) and Sahith Theegala (67).
While those three golfers were able to complete their round on Friday, eighteen others weren’t as fortunate after darkness halted play.
Play was suspended at 8:41 p.m. ET on Friday and resumed Saturday at 9:37 a.m. after a delay of two hours, 22 minutes due to heavy fog. The third round will be played off Nos. 1 and 10 tees in groups of three with the final grouping at approximately 1:40 p.m.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is in a four-way tie at 9 under. Scheffler fired a 66 on Friday following his early-morning arrest outside the property.
Thomas Detry of Belgium (67), Mark Hubbard (68) and Bryson DeChambeau, who tied Morikawa for the low round of the day with a 65, also stand at 9 under heading into the weekend.
Viktor Hovland of Norway (66), Dean Burmester of South Africa (65), Austin Eckroat (67) and Tony Finau (69) are four off the lead at 8 under.
After nine birdies and no bogeys on Thursday, Schauffele rolled in four more birdies in his first 10 holes to move to 13 under. He made his first bogey of the tournament at the par-3 11th hole before parring his final seven holes.
“Definitely didn’t have the finish I wanted,” Schauffele said. “I felt like I was hitting some really good shots in there, a couple unlucky breaks in the fairway, but that start was nice. Definitely settled me in. Making that long putt on the third hole was definitely a nice snag to make me feel a little bit more comfortable.”
It took a while for anyone to catch Schauffele to start the second round, but Morikawa finally did it with the run of birdies late in his round. He made birdie at Nos. 4-8 to go to 12 under before his bogey at No. 9.
It was the longest birdie streak of his major championship career.
“I’ve been putting great so far since Augusta, so it’s nice to just kind of keep that trend going,” Morikawa said. “And was able to hit a few good close shots, few wedge shots, take advantage of the short holes, the par-5s and for the most part didn’t really make any big errors, other than the last hole, just that approach shot.”
Morikawa had four straight top-25s heading into this week. The two-time major champion (2020 PGA Championship, 2021 Open Championship) has himself in contention for a third.
“I know I still have it in me, and that’s what’s exciting is that, after Augusta, it (stunk) to finish like that and it sucked to lose to Scottie (at the Masters), but at the end of the day, I knew I had three more majors coming up and to prep for that and get things as sharp as possible and just come out strong,” he said. “It’s obviously nice to get off to this start.”
Scheffler was booked on four charges, including assault of a police officer in what began as a traffic-related incident, before he was able to return to Valhalla to make his delayed tee time. He opened birdie-bogey-birdie before recording four more birdies on the day.
“I did spend some time stretching in a jail cell. That was a first for me,” Scheffler deadpanned after his round. “That was part of my warmup. I was just sitting there waiting and I started going through my warmup, I felt like there was a chance I may be able to still come out here and play. I started going through my routine and I tried to get my heart rate down as much as I could today, but like I said, I still feel like my head is spinning a little bit. But I was fortunate to be able to make it back out and play some golf today.”
The cut was at even par, thereby eliminating Spaniard Jon Rahm (even par), Adam Scott of Australia (3 over), Wyndham Clark (4 over), Phil Mickelson (4 over) and Tiger Woods (7 over) among others.
–Field Level Media