In a year of unexpected plot twists and turns, maybe the biggest one of all (at least on the course) has come this week as Phil Mickelson leads the Travelers Championship after two rounds in his first start as a 50-year-old.
As you know by now, if you've been following along at all this week, this is not a drill. Mickelson has been brilliant for two straight days in Connecticut where he is a former two-time winner and now takes a slim lead into Saturday's Round 3. Let's jump into his second round, who's chasing and how it's all going to go down this weekend at TPC River Highlands.
1. Phil Mickelson (-13) -- Earlier this week, I literally said the words, "I don't know what the path is to a win on the PGA Tour in his 50s for Phil Mickelson." Prescient, I know. Mickelson backed up his Thursday 64 with a 7-under 63 on Friday and leads the event after 36 holes of play at TPC River Highlands. Even more incredibly, he was playing alongside maybe the hottest player on Tour -- Bryson DeChambeau -- as well as the best player in the world -- Rory McIlroy. He nipped both of them in style.
The scary part here is that it's not just a hot putter that's pushing Lefty to the top of this board. He's second in the field from tee to green and (I can't believe I'm typing this) driving it beautifully so far this week; hitting 19 of 28 fairways for Mickelson is like a lesser player hitting them all. Only a handful of golfers have ever won a tournament in their 50s, and only Craig Stadler did it in his first start after turning 50. Mickelson has a chance to join both lists this weekend.
T2. Will Gordon, Mackenzie Hughes (-12) -- Who is Will Gordon? He's the 2019 SEC Player of the Year from Vanderbilt and Ben Hogan Award semifinalist (others include Viktor Hovland, Matthew Wolff and Collin Morikawa -- maybe you've heard of them?). He's been mostly toiling on the Mackenzie Tour for the large part of his short career (this is his eighth career PGA Tour start). Now he's leading both the tournament and this field in strokes gained putting. The former is exciting because Gordon is a good player who has a great future ahead of him on the PGA Tour. The latter could foreshadow a weekend fade given that he's rolling it at an unsustainable clip.
T4. Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Brendon Todd, Marc Leishman, Brendan Steele (-9) -- When a player shoots 68-63 over the first two days, we praise them for having all the momentum going into the weekend. When they shoot 63-68 like Xander Schauffele did, we worry they may be stalling out before the third round. The reality here is that it doesn't matter how you got to 9 under, only that you got to 9 under. Schauffele is one of the 10 best players in the world, and because he's in the top 10 going into this weekend, he's one of the favorites to win at TPC River Highlands. He held it together with a blazing putter on Friday, but the iron play will need to improve if he wants to have a shot at another win on the Tour.
Rory was quite average on Friday at TPC River Highlands. The good thing for him is that he raced out early on Thursday to that 7-under 63, so he'll still have a late tee time on Saturday in Round 3. He did not hit the ball well at all in Round 2, but the good news if you're a Rory fan is that he still hasn't made a putt. Through the first two rounds, he's made just four putts over 8 feet while he's made 23 under 3 feet. If that flips at all this weekend, he'll win.
T10. Kevin Streelman, Kevin Na, Sung Kang, Zach Johnson, Viktor Hovland, Patton Kizzire, Abraham Ancer, Troy Merritt, Bryson DeChambeau, Seung-Yul Noh (-8) -- I love a course where both Zach Johnson and Viktor Hovland can have this kind of success. Their games could not possibly be more different -- Hovland hits it standard deviations past Johnson and Johnson has a short game Hovland could only dream of -- yet here we are at 9 under going into the weekend. It would be even better if they got a tee time together to accentuate the point.
Three takeaways
• Collin Morikawa's streak of 22 straight made cuts to start his career stops three shy of Tiger Woods' record of 25 straight to start a pro career. Morikawa is no doubt drained after nearly winning the Charles Schwab Challenge and laboring to make the cut at the RBC Heritage. He's going to be really good for a really long time, and the 22 made cuts in a row are evidence of how good he is already.
• Player to keep an eye on as we enter Round 3 on Saturday: Sergio Garcia. He had an amazing weekend at Harbour Town last week, and he's in the top 20 again in strokes gained tee to green, even if his position on the leaderboard doesn't reflect it.
• Another weekend, another fabulous leaderboard. Tee times will be early on Saturday due to forecasted inclement weather, which actually feels kind of normal given the current sports landscape. I'm fired up for Saturday morning with this board, which has it all: recent elite amateurs, one of the 10 best golfers ever, the best player in the world, studs from both Ryder Cup teams and the Bryson robot. If you can't get excited about that group taking on a course that's dying to provide a 59, then I don't know what's going to wind you up properly.
CBS Sports was with you the entire way updating this story with the latest scores, updates and highlights from the Travelers Championship below. Check out the live scores at the top of this story or a more detailed leaderboard.
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