Morikawa and Schauffele nibble into Scheffler lead at East Lake

Scottie Scheffler lines up his putt on the seventh green during the second round of the Tour Championship at East Lake. Picture: AP Photo/Mike Stewart

Scottie Scheffler has made a season out of separating himself from his peers. His peers on Friday refused to let the world No. 1 run away with the FedEx Cup.

Scheffler shot a 5-under 66 on Friday to reach 21-under but his seven-shot lead got a nibbled down to only four strokes by Collin Morikawa (63) and five by Xander Schauffele (64) in the second round of the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club.

“A sense of urgency today to try and pick some up,” was how Schauffele described Friday’s challenge of chasing down the best golfer in the world.

Nobody else is closer than nine strokes to the world No. 1 at the halfway point, with Wyndham Clark, Adam Scott and Sahith Theegala tied for fourth at 12-under and Sam Burn alone in seventh at 11-under.

“It’s going to be very tough to catch up with him. He’d have to not play his best and I’d have to play unbelievable,” said Clark of his nine-shot deficit.

“But there’s still a lot of great things to finishing second, third or fourth or fifth even. I’m still chasing after that top spot, but like I said, I need some help.” 

Rory McIlroy (T10) and Shane Lowry (T14) both shot 2-under 69 on Friday and are 13 and 14 strokes respectively behind Scheffler.

The golf world rolled its collective eyes at the PGA Tour’s assertion that Scheffler set the all-time tour record for the largest lead after 18 holes – seven strokes – despite the fact that his opening-round 65 was only one shot better than five other players. They don’t make asterisks large enough to apply to that kind of logic when you stake a player to a lead ranging from two to 10 strokes over the rest of the field before play even starts.

“Probably will definitely not have any more seven-shot leads after … it was seven, wasn’t it? I’m sure you guys made a really huge deal of that,” Scheffler said. 

“Really it’s just a product of me having a good day and the guys behind me on the leaderboard, there wasn’t a lot of guys there to start the day, and those three guys there didn’t have their best stuff.” 

But the truth is, when you give already the best player in the world strokes at the outset, you run the risk of turning your dramatic season finale into a snoozefest.

Scheffler was threatening to do just that when his low first round pushed him to 16-under when nobody else reached double digits under par. He didn’t slow down much with another one-bogey round that was almost as good as his first.

“Played another what I felt like was a pretty solid round of golf,” Scheffler said. “Hitting a lot of fairways and a lot of greens.” If the right people didn’t shoot a number in the second round and Scheffler went low again, the Tour Championship could have been over before the weekend.

The right people – meaning the players closest to Scheffler – did shoot numbers on Friday to keep things from getting out of hand. Morikawa and Schauffele started the round tied for second and posted the two lowest rounds of the day on Friday and keep the leader honest.

Was the pressure on to post a good score Friday?

“Yeah, absolutely,” said Schauffele. “I played with Scottie yesterday, so this course right now with how firm the greens are, it’s a ball-striking type deal where you have to be in the fairways and hit your number, and he’s been killing everyone at that all year. I know he’s not going to let up, so there’s only one way to get him.” 

Said Morikawa: “He’s such a good player that you just know he’s going to keep going low and making birdies. I saw that firsthand. I’ve seen it for years. For me, it’s just keep my foot on the gas and keep sticking to my game plan.” 

Scheffler’s lead was already down to four with three holes to go when play was suspended for 95 minutes due to thunderstorms. When play resumed on a deserted golf course, Scheffler immediately birdied 16 to go back up by 5 and added a final birdie at 18.

But Morikawa matched him after the restart with birdies at 17 and 18.

“Sometimes after a break like that you just lose … you don’t lose rhythm but you just lose kind of that energy,” Morikawa said. “It was nice to finish off with two birdies.” 

Schauffele made a clutch par save from 11 feet at 17 and a 12-footer for birdie on 18 to remain in the chase.

“It was nice to finish off with two big putts. Pretty dark out, so happy those two went in. Keeps the momentum from what was a pretty good round,” Schauffele said.