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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The fates of the obvious and rich storylines entering this PGA Championship at Quail Hollow fluctuated madly throughout the second round Friday.
Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1-ranked player in the world, methodically climbed his way up the leaderboard to the point where he’s close enough to the lead that he has to be considered a favorite to win entering the weekend.
Scheffler has not had even close to his best stuff, yet he’s 5-under par and stands just three out of the lead at 8-under held by Jhonattan Vegas.
Rory McIlroy, fresh off his monumental Masters victory last month to complete the career Grand Slam, has been essentially running in place for two days.
He hovered around the cut line all day Friday, finishing with a 2-under 69 and stands at 1-over to make the weekend.
McIlroy took everyone on a thrill ride at the end, going to 18, which has yielded more double bogeys than any hole on the course this week, needing a bogey to secure a place for the weekend.
McIlroy hit his tee shot off a hospitality tent to the left of the fairway and the ball bounced and ended up on a sidehill bank where it nearly rolled into a creek.
He punched out into the rough to the right of the green and, from there, needed to get up and down to make the cut. He chipped onto the green and two-putted.
This week was always going to be an interesting litmus test for McIlroy, who admitted to reporters on Wednesday that he’s accomplished everything he’s ever wanted to do in golf and that anything else he did would be gravy.
He, however, insisted he’d remain hungry.
Xander Schauffele, the defending champion, also was in a mad chase to make the cut, which stood at 1-over for most of the day before it began to move back and forth between 2-over and 1-over.
He entered the week with the longest active streak for made cuts with 63 in a row and barely kept that alive by finishing on the 1-over cutline.
In another massive storyline, Jordan Spieth’s bid to complete the career Grand Slam with a PGA Championship victory ended, leaving him 0-for-9 since he won his last major, the 2017 British Open, which was his third leg of the Slam.
He finished his two rounds at 2-over, though he made a valiant attempt to come back from his opening-round 76 with a 3-under 68 on Friday.
In the end, he ended up one shot on the wrong side of the 1-over cutline.
Justin Thomas was another pre-tournament storyline as a trending favorite entering the week based on his winning the PGA at Quail Hollow in 2017 and his strong form of late, with a win at the RBC last month.
But he missed the cut, finishing 3-over through 36 holes.
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