Viktor Hovland keeps up the momentum with scorching 64 at Tour Championship

His game caught fire on the back at East Lake on Friday, with five birdies in six holes to help him hold a share of the Tour Championship lead with the equally hot Collin Morikawa

ALL EYES: Viktor Hovland of Norway plays his shot from the 15th tee during the second round of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. Pic: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

The largest city in the American South long ago earned the nickname “Hotlanta,” a nod to its expansive growth and its summer temperatures. The only thing more scorching than the weather this week on the PGA Tour is Viktor Hovland.

The Norwegian picked up where he left off when he won last week in Chicago with a Sunday 61 that included a torrid 28 on the closing nine at Olympia Fields. His game caught fire on the back at East Lake as well on Friday, with five birdies in six holes to help him hold a share of the Tour Championship lead with the equally hot Collin Morikawa.

Both Hovland and Morikawa fired 6-under 64s to sit tied at 16-under, two shots ahead of Scottie Scheffler (65) in the race to win the FedEx Cup title and US $18 million bonus. Keegan Bradley (67) holds fourth at 13-under with Xander Schauffele (64) and Jon Rahm (65) tied for fifth at 12-under.

“I mean, obviously it feels good, so I just tried to do more of the same and I was able to make some putts on the back nine. So, yeah, it was good,” said Hovland of his continued momentum.

“Let's just keep it going. It's as simple as that. That's the way I'm thinking and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.” 

Rory McIlroy, still bothered by back spasms that struck him at home on Monday, managed to get around in 3-under 67 to reach 10-under, alone in seventh and six shots behind the leaders.

“I'm limited in what I can do, but I'm here grinding away, battling away,” McIlroy said. “So happy to be through 36 holes.” 

While acknowledging that he felt a little improvement and was able to generate more speed in his swing Friday than Thursday, he can’t deploy his usual game.

“I can't hit the ball left-to-right and I can't swing my irons the way I want to,” he said. “I can't turn my right side through the ball. So from the top of the swing I'm just sort of throwing my arms at it and it's a lot of face rotation and I can only really hit it one way with the irons.

“I can't hit the driver the way I usually do. Like, teeing it up I'm teeing it down and just hitting a sort of flat little runner down there. So, yeah, look, a little limited to the shots that I can hit, but I'm getting by.” 

McIlroy said he’s not hurting anything by continuing to play through the spasms, and he’ll be able to work out any bad habits from accommodating for the pain once it’s fully subsided, he hopes, by the end of next week.

“At least I know I'm not doing any damage or I don't necessarily think that by me playing it's going to get worse,” he said. “It's just a matter of doing the right things away from the golf course to make sure that it gradually gets a little better.” 

McIlroy won’t have a lot of time to get better, with only a week off before a busy September ahead with the Irish Open, Wentworth and the Ryder Cup on tap. So as tough as it is to deal with during the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup finale, the timing could have been more devastating.

“I would rather it pop up now than in three or four weeks' time,” he said. “I've managed it well and I think I did well to get through yesterday. I've got through another day. Hopefully it feels a bit better over the weekend. But not great timing, but at the same time, it could be worse as well.” 

McIlroy will need to feel and score much better over the weekend to keep up and catch the heavyweights in front of him at the top of their games.

“There's always going to be somebody having a good day shooting 65 or lower. It literally happens every day no matter the conditions we play in,” said Rahm. “So if you're the leader by one you got to expect people are making birdies. That's just kind of how it's going to be. So, yeah, I think to an extent you have to be aggressive.” 

Morikawa, who shot 15-under through two rounds, said he can’t let up on the weekend. 

“There's going to continue to be low scores this weekend. Greens are starting to firm up. You're still going to see guys firing at pins. You have a few short holes that you have to take advantage of. The par-5s are very gettable,” he said. “It's not going to end at 16-under. There's going to be a lot more low scores, a lot more birdies made. I'm going to have to continue that heading into the next two days.” 

Scheffler, who was staked to a leading 10-under score for the second straight season, shot 65 Friday and lost ground on the co-leaders.

“I was six shots better, I didn't hit it in the water on 15, and I had three less three-putts, so there you go,” he said of his improvement after an opening 71 squandered his advantage.