Key events
Shane Lowry duked out a steely 68 yesterday. Birdie at the 18th sent him away with a cheery look on his face. But he’s handed that shot back immediately with a careless three-putt on his first hole of the day, the 10th. Back to -1 for the 2019 Open winner. Also heading in the wrong direction early doors: the 2010 champion Martin Kaymer, who bogeys 2 to fall out of the big leading group. Speaking of which, Scottie Scheffler will be on the scene in less than ten minutes.
-3: Scheffler, Smalley, Potgieter, Jaeger, Lee, Hisatsune
-2: Kaymer (3), Reed (1), Brown, Theegala, Greyserman, Schauffele
Only one player went bogey-free yesterday: Patrick Reed. The 2018 Masters champion has already won twice on the DP World Tour this year, as well as contending a play-off in another tournament. And he competed hard at Augusta last month. He’s in form, and with his talent for and enjoyment of battling through things, might be a good shout this week. His opening drive today is wayward, and he’s forced to chop out from the cabbage, but he wedges his third from 50 yards to eight feet and calmly tidies up to keep his blemish-free record in tact. A 68 yesterday, and he’s -2 overall.
Block party. It’s happening again. He’s happening again. Michael Block, the club pro who lit up the 2023 tournament with three rounds of 70 and a 71 that included an ace with Rory McIlroy in attendance, is doing it again. A round of 70 yesterday, and now a 20-foot putt for birdie at the par-three 5th. He’s -1 overall and already beginning to dream of making the cut. It’d be an early birthday present: he’s 50 next month. Good luck finding a single punter at Aronimink who won’t be cheering him on.
About the weather. It shouldn’t be too different to the first day. A little bit warmer, but with the wind expected to occasionally pick up again. It’s blowing pretty briskly right now. There’s not much chance of rain, and the course didn’t get a soaking tonight, so it’ll be a little bit firmer and the ball should scuttle further. Which, given so many of the fairways at Aronimink tilt towards penal rough, may not necessarily be a good thing. But it’s a great day for golf!
Preamble
There are seven players tied for the lead, and another 42 within three shots of them. The day before Moving Day is going to feature a lot of jostling for position.
Here’s what the top of the leaderboard looked like at the end of the first day …
-3: Potgieter, Jaeger, Lee, Hisatsune, Kaymer, Scheffler, Smalley
-2: Brown, Theegala, Greyserman, Schauffele, Conners, Reed, Lowry
… and here are today’s tee times (BST). Starting on the 1st …
1145 Michael Block, Rasmus Højgaard, Dustin Johnson
1156 Mark Geddes, Steven Fisk, David Lipsky
1207 Sungjae Im, Austin Hurt, Casey Jarvis
1218 Andrew Putnam, Michael Kartrude, Matt Wallace
1229 Martin Kaymer, Elvis Smylie, Davis Riley
1240 Jason Dufner, Haotong Li, Jimmy Walker
1251 Nick Taylor, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Jordan Smith
1302 Emiliano Grillo, Patrick Reed, Pierceson Coody
1313 Brian Campbell, Adam Schenk, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
1324 Marco Penge, Sepp Straka, Patrick Rodgers
1335 Aaron Rai, Travis Smyth, Sami Valimaki
1346 Sam Stevens, Jayden Schaper, Garrett Sapp
1357 Timothy Wiseman, Matti Schmid, Austin Smotherman
1715 Aldrich Potgieter, David Puig, Denny McCarthy
1726 William Mouw, Chris Gabriele, Taylor Pendrith
1737 Tom Hoge, Bryce Fisher, Joaquin Niemann
1748 Keith Mitchell, Billy Horschel, Ian Holt
1759 Gary Woodland, Jason Day, Sam Burns
1810 Wyndham Clark, Cameron Smith, Brian Harman
1821 Patrick Cantlay, Min Woo Lee, Sahith Theegala
1832 Si Woo Kim, Derek Berg, Joe Highsmith
1843 Bryson DeChambeau, Ludvig Aberg, Rickie Fowler
1854 Xander Schauffele, Brooks Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton
1905 Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm
1916 Daniel Hillier, Ryan Vermeer, Max McGreevy
1927 Paul McClure, Mikael Lindberg, Angel Ayora
… and starting on the 10th …
1150 Andrew Novak, John Parry, Jordan Gumberg
1201 Ben Polland, Kurt Kitayama, Nico Echavarria
1212 Akshay Bhatia, Ricky Castillo, Michael Thorbjornsen
1223 Luke Donald, Jesse Droemer, Stewart Cink
1234 Hideki Matsuyama, J.J. Spaun, Max Homa
1245 Ben Kern, J.T. Poston, Russell Henley
1256 Adam Scott, Corey Conners, Daniel Berger
1307 Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Shane Lowry
1318 Chris Gotterup, Robert MacIntyre, Tommy Fleetwood
1329 Cameron Young, Keegan Bradley, Justin Thomas
1340 Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose
1351 Zach Haynes, Alex Smalley, Chandler Blanchet
1402 Bernd Wiesberger, Sudarshan Yellamaraju, Andy Sullivan
1710 Braden Shattuck, Alex Fitzpatrick, Ben Griffin
1721 Francisco Bide, Harry Hall, Ryan Gerard
1732 Johnny Keefer, Rico Hoey, Nicolai Højgaard
1743 Shaun Micheel, Michael Brennan, Garrick Higgo
1754 YE Yang, Jhonattan Vegas, Matt McCarty
1805 Lucas Glover, Tom McKibbin, Stephan Jaeger
1816 Daniel Brown, Adrien Saddier, Harris English
1827 Jacob Bridgeman, Bud Cauley, Alex Noren
1838 Chris Kirk, Max Greyserman, Kristoffer Reitan
1849 Maverick McNealy, Thomas Detry, Padraig Harrington
1900 Ryan Lenahan, Ryan Fox, Kazuki Higa
1911 Jared Jones, Michael Kim, Ryo Hisatsune
1922 Tyler Collet, Kota Kaneko, Brandt Snedeker