Korea’s Younghan Song and current Merit leader Marcus Fraser of Australia returned with matching 71s while 2009 PGA Championship victor YE Yang and Thongchai Jaidee are a further shot back after carding identical 72s.
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American world No. 3 Jordan Spieth also shot 67 on Friday to move to 3-under for the tournament, but countryman and world No. 2 Dustin Johnson missed the cut after following up his horrific 7-over 77 on Thursday with a 2-over 72. He snapped a streak of 25 consecutive cuts made, which was the longest active streak on the PGA Tour.
By the end of the day, it was easy to overlook a familiar figure Henrik Stenson, the British Open champion who made eagle on the 18th at the turn and polished off another 67.
He wasn’t alone in his misery.
Streb, who has one PGA Tour win to his credit, rolled in a 21-foot birdie putt on his last hole, the ninth at Baltusrol, for the 30th round of 63 ever shot in a major championship to tie Walker (66) with a nine-under-par total of 131.
“It’s always good to be in contention at a major championship being that I won it a year ago it would be nice to get number two, my second major and get that under the belt”, he said.
“I didn’t need to worry too much”.
Walker’s year has been so mediocre that he has finished within five shots of the victor only once this year, at Torrey Pines. “Starting to hit it kind of solid. and obviously I made a bunch of putts today”. “Like good shooters, just keep shooting”.
“Hopefully I can get things moving on second day and hopefully on the weekend”. He was at 6-under 134, one shot ahead of Martin Kaymer (69) and Patrick Reed (65).
His ball went just beyond a pine onto a cart path, but because of so much rain, it was in a puddle. Just haven’t been scoring. “I was waiting on it to break, waiting on it to break, and it finally turned at the end”.
He bogeyed the third as well, but it fell apart on the par-4 seventh with a troubled affair that involved three shots from two different bunkers and ended with a 7. That was his lone mistake. “He wouldn’t let go of his arm”, Mickelson said.
The Northern Irishman struggled to an opening round 74 on Thursday and will head to the first with Jason Day and Phil Mikelson about 45 minutes behind schedule.
However, the 40-year-old Swede responded in superb fashion by hitting his 257-yard approach to the 18th to three feet to set up an eagle, before picking up birdies on the first and third. “Once I birdied eight, the momentum started picking up and it picked up pretty quick”.
“I’m having a hard time right now managing my expectations, because I know how well I’m playing and I’m so result-oriented that I’m not playing very relaxed, free golf like I did at the British, like I did in the preparation here”, Mickelson said. Walker, who distinguished himself in the last Ryder Cup, took the lead when he sank two straight bombs on the 12 and 13 holes.
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Lahiri, who plays at the Olympic Games in the closing stages of a packed season, had two birdies, three bogeys and a crippling double bogey that saw him tumble down the leaderboard. He settled for pars at both for 65.
