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PGA Championship 2020: 12 hours of Friday's action at TPC Harding Park can be summarized in these 15 tweets
Harry How
It feels so good to have major championship golf back. Though fans aren’t allowed on-site this week at the PGA Championship, wall-to-wall coverage from the ESPN and CBS broadcast teams has provided a great way to catch the happenings from TPC Harding Park.
If you weren’t glued to the Day 2 coverage, don’t worry: That’s why we’re here. Here were the biggest storylines you might’ve missed from the second round.
PGA Championship 2020 recap:
Haotong Li became one of the biggest stories early on Day 2. The International team Presidents Cupper started out hot (two under through 3) and kept a clean card, shooting a second-round 65. As we'll find out through the weekend, Li has quite the personality, as Golf Digest's Daniel Rapaport points out from Haotong's equipment:
The morning wave included some players who had hot rounds at the end of Day 1, namely Brendon Todd and Paul Casey. Someone under the radar was Mark Hubbard, but he provided one of the best shots of the week early in the day, holing this approach at the ultra difficult ninth hole.
Hubbard ended up making the cut on the number (one over), so it was a good thing he holed that shot!
The only golfer to one-up Li in the morning wave was Tommy Fleetwood, who shot the best round of the day, a six-under 64. Though Fleetwood has only played twice since the PGA Tour restart, we are certainly no stranger to his prowess in major championships.
Li's morning five-under 65 was also incredible for the lack of fairways he hit at TPC Harding Park, especially considering how thick the rough is around here …
Then there was this from Rickie Fowler. One of the most unusual things we've seen, and to have it happen to a veteran like Rickie in a major ... made this especially odd.
Tiger Woods got his round going in the afternoon on Day 2, and though he holed 115 feet of putts on Thursday with his new putter, it was quite different, especially to start his round on Friday.
Tony Finau was among a large group of talented players in the afternoon wave to be around the lead. Though he faded and finished at three under, he did provide us this fun highlight with his driver—which led many on social media to appreciate Finau for his length. The long-hitting Utah native would like to be known as a major champion by the end of the week, too.
Jason Day had joined Li atop the leader board at eight under for a while before dropping a few shots coming in to finish at six under. So we won't get this pairing as hoped below, but we did appreciate the Presidents Cup humor.
The funny thing about Haotong ... he wouldn't leave the golf course. It was hours after he had completed his round, and he was spotted still on the practice green. Apparently he had left and come back to practice, but still, this became a big storyline all afternoon as TV cameras caught on to Haotong still practicing.
In a group with Woods and Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy hadn't gotten anything going until midway through his second round ... when he got REALLY hot. This run got him to two under for the tournament, and we thought Rory might be playing his way into contention.
An odd scene came later on Friday when Brooks Koepka kept calling his physio over to stretch him out on the golf course. Koepka commented after the round about his hip being tight, and he had it stretched out multiple times during the round. And CBS' Kyle Porter was possibly surprised it wasn't Day, who has a penchant for getting injured, on the ground needing attention.
Remember the Rory momentum we talked about? It was snapped by a sloppy triple bogey at the 12th hole.
And yeah ... Haotong really wouldn't leave the range at the end of the day!
One of the more fun stories of the afternoon was Mike Lorenzo-Vera, who backed up his first-round 66 with a two-under 68 to be at T-2 after 36 holes. The Frenchman has only won on the Challenge Tour [the European Tour's version of the Korn Ferry Tour]. But MLV is sort of an incredible story, and the broader sports fan is getting to know it after a deep interview on ESPN with Tom Rinaldi.
We have a great leader board heading into Saturday at TPC Harding Park, and though some things will be different ... like tour pros showing up to the course in masks, no fans, etc., at least we have major golf! Rory commented on the lack of fans while playing with Tiger over the first two days, an interesting fact to keep in mind heading into the weekend.