Day 2 PGA Championship Recap: Phil Mickelson Is So Smooth

Another awesome day at Kiawah. Big time names moving their way into position and some fantastic cut drama. Course played tough and then it played tougher. More on that in a minute. Let's get to it.

Winners

Phil Mickelson

Who else? Phil is the story right now. Wrote about him earlier today. His score held up to leave him as the co-leader so he'll be in the final pairing tomorrow.

Louis Oosthuizen

What a surprise, Louie is contending in a major. Seems like this guy is in the mix all the time. You rarely see him pop up in anything but a major. Which is a great reminder. This guy has 1 official PGA Tour win. ONE! And it wasn't even in the US. It was at St Andrew's at the 2010 Open Championship. Jim Herman has more in the last 2 years than this guy. Crazy.

With that said, we all know this guy can golf his ball. He's got one of the best swings in the game.

Louis tied for low round of the day with a 68 and the most impressive part is that he did it in the midst of a challenging afternoon wave. I said in my preview blog on Wednesday that I love Aussies and South Africans that can flight the ball down and have experience in windy links-style conditions. Stupid me not choosing him as one of my guys. His game is an obvious fit and I expect him to stay in the mix til the very end.

The Wind

We heard all week going in that the wind was going to be factor and boy has it delivered. It's been there both days but it really ramped up this afternoon. The scoring for the entire day was north of 75.5 and it felt like it was getting worse by the minute. Once again, the 7th and 11th holes (both par 5's) were the only holes playing under par. Guys were playing downwind on a hole like the 14th and had no chance of landing and stopping the ball on the green. Playing upwind made the final 2 holes a fight for survival. The 17th hole par 3 averaged 3.59 and the final par 4 18th averaged 4.51. Brutal way to come in if you started your day on the first tee.

ESPN Coverage

I thought the broadcast so far by ESPN was really exceptional. CBS and NBC both tend to get too deep into the narratives and meaningless analysis instead of just showing golf. I thought ESPN did a very nice job of zipping around and simply showing golf. It felt like they may have gotten away from that just a touch towards the end with showing the featured groups a bit too much but they were some of the last players on the course. There was little to show. 

Scott Van Pelt is in his comfort zone covering golf too. He's been phenomenal as per usual and I think Sean McDonough has been awesome too. Would love to see him on the mic for more golf in the future. We'll drift back to CBS for the weekend and get sucked into all that sappy shit Nantz loves to feed us and be fine with it. But ESPN…. nice job.

LOSERS

Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, and Xander Schauffele

The World's #1, #2, and #4 players are all going home early one shot off the cut line. Pretty surprising. I think this golf course has been a really fair test. There are challenges in the wind for sure, but I thought this would be an environment where the world's very best would shine. Don't get me wrong, this is a great leaderboard, but to see 3 of the world's top 5 fail to make the cut is a bit jarring. Especially JT. DJ's been sliding and X can be hit or miss, but JT is a guy who thrives off creativity and hitting tough shots. We'll talk to ya.

Cameron Tringale

Midway thru the morning Cameron Tringale found himself -3 for his first 22 holes and just 2 shots back of the lead. An hour later he was +10 for the tournament and buried with a one-way ticket home. Astounding +13 swing there. A perfect example of how tough this tournament is playing when you're heading home into the wind. If the wind keeps that direction, Sunday is going to be so tasty. Anyways, tough look for Tringale.

The 17th Tee Marker

Rest In Pieces my brotha

Highlights

Harry Higgs is the freakin man.

Brendan Steele made this pitch-in to guarantee a spot for the weekend Clutch.

How Louie made his move.

Branden Grace briefly held the lead this morning before falling back a bit. South Africans man.

And that's it. Big moving day tomorrow. Let's get it.