Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg has charged two strokes clear to lead The Players Championship after the second round, while former winner Jason Day remains at the head of the Australian challenge.<\/p>\n
Fuelled by a blistering front nine that included two eagles, Aberg fired a superb nine-under-par 63 on a sun-splashed \u200cafternoon at TPC Sawgrass for a 12-under total.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old, whose most recent PGA Tour victory came at last year’s Genesis Invitational, leads two-time major champion Xander Schauffele, who had set the pace in the morning wave with a seven-under 65.<\/p>\n
Eight shots off the pace is Day, who managed a second consecutive round of 70 to sit at four under.<\/p>\n
The Queenslander, victor in the PGA Tour’s flagship event in 2017, didn’t have a bogey on his flawless card on Friday and his only dropped shots after two rounds came in Thursday’s first round on the course’s signature par-three 17th.<\/p>\n
Aberg made an electrifying start to the second round. He birdied the first, eagled the par-five second by sinking a 4m putt and picked up further shots at the third and fourth.<\/p>\n
He then added another eagle at the par-five ninth, where he chipped in from light rough just short of the green, to reach the turn at a sensational seven under and in a tie for the lead with Schauffele.<\/p>\n
Aberg briefly moved one ahead with a two-putt birdie at the par-five 11th before slipping back with a bogey at the par-four 15th. Undaunted though, he responded with additional birdies at the par-five 16th and the par-four 18th to end his day \u200cwith a two-stroke advantage.<\/p>\n
“Overall I \u2060felt like I was striking it quite nice,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I kind of got away with a few tee balls in the middle of the \u200bround where I wasn’t hitting the fairways necessarily. …But overall, I feel like my iron play has been pretty good lately …Super pleased with the way I was hitting it.”<\/p>\n
Schauffele finished his round with a flourish, making birdies on his last two holes. The 10-time winner on the PGA Tour, who clinched the PGA Championship and the Open Championship in 2024, is seeking his first victory this year.<\/p>\n
Amongst Australia’s early starters, Min Woo Lee fired a two-under 70 that leaves him at two under. It proved a real mixed bag of a round for the 27-year-old, as his seven birdies were offset by five bogeys.<\/p>\n
Veteran Adam Scott recorded a second consecutive level-par 72 but Karl Vilips had a calamitous 79, featuring two double-bogeys and one triple which ensured a weekend off.<\/p>\n
World No. 2 and defending champion Rory McIlroy, looking to shrug off a back injury that led to his \u200bwithdrawal from last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, experienced another day of frustration with a one-under 71.<\/p>\n
The Northern Irishman opened with a 74 on Thursday and is right on the projected cut-line.<\/p>\n
Asked how his back \u200bwas holding up, McIlroy replied: “It feels pretty much there. Not all the way there, but I feel like it’s just progressively getting better each \u200band every day.”<\/p>\n
with Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg has charged two strokes clear to lead The Players Championship after the second round, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-539533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}