Collin Morikawa followed up his opening flawless 61 with a bogey-free 64 to take a share of the lead at 16-under in the TOUR Championship. He is the only player still bogey-free at the halfway mark.
“I was going to treat Monday through Wednesday this week just as a kind of relaxing, get into it, game felt good enough to play well, and I went down this rabbit hole of just kind of — I hit one bad shot in the practice round, tried to figure it out, was out on the range two more hours.
“But the game does feel really good. Mentally I feel really good. Like I said yesterday, like J.J. told me end of Sunday last week, was just to enjoy it. It’s hard to get here. It really is.
“But at the same time I’m trying to win this tournament. So I know how to balance those things. It’s always — it’s obviously nice to be in the final group heading into a weekend. So it’s things that I enjoy, for sure.”
The American’s 36-hole total of 125 broke the event record of 127 set by Tiger Woods in 2007.
Viktor Hovland who won last week at the BMW Championship also closed with a 64 for a share of the lead.
“I think it all starts from just the tee. I’m hitting a lot of fairways, driving it really well. If you’re constantly in the fairway on this golf course, you can really be aggressive with some of the iron shots in there. Just been able to give myself a lot of looks. On the back nine, I started making some putts.”
World number 1 Scottie Scheffler of the United States carded a bogey-free 65 to move into third place at 14-under one shot ahead of compatriot Keegan Bradley (67).
Spain’s Jon Rahm closed with a 65 to move into a share of fifth place at 12-under alongside American Xander Schauffele who shot a bogey-free 64).
Three-time FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy (65) of Northern Ireland recorded his 30th consecutive round at par or better on Tour, the longest active current streak, and lies in seventh place at 10-under.
McIlroy is looking to become the first back-to-back FedExCup champion; no defending champion has finished higher than 7th in the FedExCup (Justin Thomas/2018, Patrick Cantlay/2022).
