Friday’s second round of the 150th Open is underway and it has brought with it a little more “Open Championship” like weather. Light rain and overcast skies have been greeting those off early at the Old Course, although the forecast calls for the clouds breaking in the afternoon. Regardless, we’re in for an eventful day as some players jockey for position on the leaderboard and others try their hardest simply to make the cut.
(Scroll down for the Open live latest updates)
4:14 a.m.: A few tidbits from the R&A on course set-up for the second round. The greens have been double cut but are still rolling at only 10.3 on the stimpmeter. And here are the hole locations:
4:08 a.m.: There are two major champions is on the leaderboard lurking among the early wave of players: Dustin Johnson and Scottie Scheffler, who both shot four-under 68s in the opening round. Interesting, though, both also bogeyed the first hole on Friday.
4:01 a.m.: As we sign on here, Cameron Young remains the leader at eight under, after an impressive-opening 64 that could have been even lower. And he continues to have a two-stroke lead, but now not just over Rory McIlroy but a second golfer. Talor Gooch, teeing off in the sixth group, has made two birdies in his first three holes to get to six under.
It will be a little while, however, until Young starts his second round. The 18-hole leader doesn’t tee off until 8:26 a.m. eastern time
3:58 a.m.: For the curious, the overall scoring average on Thursday was 72.699. But scoring got progressive harder. Groups 1-13 had an average of 71.49, Groups 14-26 were 72.46, Groups 27-39 shot 73.31 and Groups 40-52 (the last of which finished in the dark close to 10:30 p.m. local time, 73.51. A total of 26 players broke 70 during the day, but 17 of those were players in the early half of the draw.
3:53 a.m.: We mentioned the weather in the intro. Here is the official forecast from the Met Office:
3:50 a.m.: We’ve already had a prime candidate for the most quirky shot of the day. Haotong Li was playing his approach on the first and, well, this happened: