From The PGA Championship: Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland Co-Lead With Brooks, Bryson Right In The Mix

Kevin C. Cox. Getty Images.

Pittsford, N.Y. — A U.S. Open has broken out at the PGA Championship, in mid-May, in Rochester. Juicy rough, fiery fairways and slick greens are a recipe for bogeys and doubles and more bogeys, and the five-over cut speaks to just how difficult Oak Hill is playing. 

The early-late wave caught a bit of a break, so long as they brought their umbrellas—a steady rain softened the greens considerably, offering players a chance to attack…if, and it's a crucial if, they were playing from the fairway. Because what the rain giveth in terms of softness, it taketh away in sheer girth of the rough. If you drove it poorly, you struggled. If you didn't, you had chances. 

Scottie Scheffler didn't hit quite as many fairways as he'd like, but he's occupying a pretty familiar position over these past couple years. He shares the lead at the halfway point after posting 67-68 and sitting at five under, tied with fellow ball-striking specialists Viktor Hovland and Corey Conners. 

"I would say the rain made the golf course easier when you are executing," Scheffler said Friday. "When you get out of position, I think it's just as challenging, just because the rough is so wet. There are certain places where you would be able to advance the ball further if the rough wasn't wet. But when you are hitting good shots and hitting fairways, the golf course is definitely more accessible this afternoon just because the wind kind of died down, and the rain was on and off, but mostly it was just due to the wind dying, I would say, because the fairways didn't really seem like they softened up much to me at all."

Scheffler played the first two rounds alongside Brooks Koepka, who's back to feasting on major championships after a one-year hiatus that had everything to do with a pesky knee problem that seems to finally be sorted. Koepka birdied three of his last four holes for a four-under 66, the best round of the day, and looks poised to be a factor all weekend for the second straight major championship. 

Unlike Scheffler, Koepka had zero problems off the tee, wailing away high cut after high cut. He gained over 2.6 shots off the tee and more than 6 from tee-to-green, both best in the field for Friday's round. 

Also up near the lead is Bryson DeChambeau, who mostly evaded pre-tournament hype despite this New York Golden Age gem drawing comparisons to another one he knows well in Winged Foot West. DeChambeau's dropped a good 30 pounds from his beefy days of 2020, back when he bludgeoned that U.S. Open into submission. The three years since have been rather turbulent: hand surgery, never-ending controversy and a high-profile switch to LIV Golf. But he still has all that speed, and work with new swing coach Dana Dahlquist has him keeping it relatively straight. 

The same cannot be said for Rory McIlroy, who flew in his often in-the-shadows coach Michael Bannon in a last-minute effort to sort out a two-way miss with the driver. He's striping it off the range but has not been able to bring it to the golf course. That, plus a bug he's been fighting this week, has him surprised he's still in with a shout at even par and just five behind. 

"I think how terribly I've felt over the golf ball over the last two days, the fact that I'm only five back -- yeah, not saying it could be up there with one of my best performances, but when I holed that putt at the last, I looked at the board, and I thought, I can't believe I'm five back," McIlroy said after a one-under 69. "I guess that's a good thing because I know if I can get it in play off the tee, that's the key to my success over the weekend. If I can get the ball in play off the tee, I'll have a shot."

As for the strategy going forward—he's done with the cute stuff, because the cute stuff isn't working. 

"I think at this point I might just tee it high and just bomb it everywhere. I tried to hit that little cut off the tee on 16, and it nearly went OB. I hit my last two tee shots on 17 and 18 really hard, and they actually were really good tee shots. As long as you miss it, there's -- every hole one side is sort of trouble and one side is not. As long as you're missing it in the right spots off the tees, I might as well just go for it and swing hard at it."

A number of huge names had to grind just to see the weekend. Jordan Spieth holed a nervy putt at the last to squeak in on the number, and Justin Thomas nearly bungled it in spectacular fashion after hitting the lip of a fairway bunker with his second shot on 18. He was able to save bogey and avoid missing the cut for the second straight major.  Phil Mickelson and Tony Finau also skated by on the number. World No. 1 Jon Rahm bounced back from a shocking opening-round 76 with a two-under 68 and sits nine back. Guys who will miss the cut: Matt Fitzpatrick, Jason Day, Sungjae Im, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns and Tom Kim. 

The feel-good story of the week thus far comes courtesy of 46-year-old club pro Michael Block, who shot back-to-back 70s to sit tied for 11th after 36 holes against all the best players on the planet. When told that he was beating Jon Rahm by six shots, he took a moment to compare it with his day job and became emotional. 

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"Played amazing," Block, the head pro at Arroyo Trabuco in Southern California and winner of the Southern California PGA section player of the year award nine of the last 10 years, said. "I feel like I've got the game this week to compete, to tell you the truth. I've made the cut, which is obviously, like I told you, a huge goal. I feel like I could shoot even par out here every day. I feel like at the end of the four days that that might be a pretty good result."

Indeed it would. More rain is forecasted for Saturday, which will put an even higher premium on finding fairways. As we said before: we have a U.S. Open on our hands.