Schauffele one clear of Morikawa after second round – US PGA Championship

Round 2

Xander Schauffele clings onto a one-stroke lead at the midway point of the US PGA Championship as Rory McIlroy’s major tilt regressed at the second round at a soggy and mud-laden Valhalla GC.

Schauffele added a second round of 68 to his record-equalling opening 62 to reach 12 under, matching the championship scoring record in relation to par set by Brooks Koepka in 2019.

Former champion Collin Morikawa was a shot off the lead following a superb 65, with Sahith Theegala another stroke back and Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau part of a four-strong group on nine under.

Scheffler amazingly returned a 66 hours after being arrested – and subsequently released from police custody – following an incident outside the course.

Scheffler had attempted to get into the course amid heavy traffic caused by an earlier unrelated accident in which a male pedestrian died after being struck by a shuttle bus.

The world number one faces charges of second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving and disregarding traffic signals from an officer directing traffic.

The fatal accident resulted in a delay of 80 minutes to all tee times and meant 18 players were unable to complete round two before darkness fell.

Morikawa and Scheffler made up the last group in the final round at Augusta National in April, with Scheffler cruising to his second green jacket as Morikawa faded to a tie for third after a 74.

However, it was a frustrating round for Rory McIlroy, whose challenge stagnated on Friday with a disappointing even par round 71.

McIlroy, who won the most recent of his four major championships at this layout 10 years ago, made the perfect start with a long birdie putt on the opening hole but missed a series of chances over the remainder of the front nine while others fired up the leaderboard.

The world no. 2’s tilt went into reverse with a damaging double-bogey on the 12th, after an overhit bunker shot and a subsequent duffed chip. He missed further opportunities to recover before at least finishing with a two-putt birdie on the par-5 18th.

Shane Lowry is one stroke further back after a second successive 69, leaving him tied-30th on four-under par.

Lowry began on the 10th and reached the turn on 34 strokes, with birdies on 10, 13 and 16, with a dropped stroke on the short 11th.

Schauffele led by three strokes after his 62 on Thursday but he was briefly overhauled – before his own second round began – by Morikawa, who hit a rampant streak on his inward nine (the front nine), rattling in five straight birdies from the fourth to the eighth holes, jumping to -12, before finishing on a bum note with a bogey following a poor pitch shot on the ninth.

“I know I still have it in me,” said Morikawa, who won both the 2020 US PGA and 2021 Open Championship on his tournament debut.

“It sucked to finish like that at Augusta and it sucked to lose to Scottie, but what’s exciting is that, 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.

“It’s obviously nice to get off to this start.”

Scheffler was booked on four charges, including assault of a police officer, 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 dead-panned after his round. “That was part of 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 is at one-under par, which at this point would put 79 golfers into the weekend.

It marks just the third major to ever have acut line that was under par, joining the 1990 Open Championship at St Andrews and the 2006 Open at Royal Liverpool.