PGA Championship Day 2 Winners and Losers: Collin and Xander Shine, While Two 2023 Major Champions Head Home

Xander Schauffele is one day closer to shedding the major-less label while Jon Rahm and Wyndham Clark are surprisingly heading home.

Xander Schauffele shot a 68 to hold onto the lead heading into the weekend at Valhalla. / Clare Grant/Courier Journal / USA TODAY

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Day 2 of the 2024 PGA Championship is in the books, and it will always be remembered for a tragic accident, Scottie Scheffler’s early-morning arrest and subsequent round of 66. But outside the swirl around Scheffler this PGA Championship continued to unfold. Here are the other newsmakers on a surreal Friday at Valhalla:

Winners

Collin Morikawa: The world No. 13 finished T3 at the Masters but a Sunday 74 left a sour taste that apparently he’s using as fuel this week. He’s off to a 66-65 start with 14 birdies going into a weekend that could be a shootout.

Thomas Detry: Golf fans might be Googling this name all weekend. The lanky 6-foot-2 Belgian looks the part of a stud player but doesn’t have a deep resume of wins, though a 66-67 start puts him squarely in the weekend picture alongside some of the game’s best.

Mark Hubbard: Here’s a peek behind the golf media curtain: a guy like Mark Hubbard, winless on the PGA Tour, won’t get much attention in the first round in one of the very last tee times even when shooting 65. The scribes had their Xander Schauffele stories done and buses to catch. But the 34-year-old Coloradoan followed the 65 with a Friday 68 and is squarely in the hunt at 9 under, so here’s some media love, Mark Hubbard. 

Xander Schauffele: Saw his name atop the leaderboard all afternoon and held it together to sign for 68. He’s halfway home to removing his name from the Best Without a Major list. 

Losers

Jon Rahm: We gave him credit Thursday for a major-champion level grind to shoot 1 under after a terrible start, but 1 over Friday was one too many and snapped a streak of 18 consecutive major cuts.

Wyndham Clark: Missed cuts in the season’s first two majors shouldn’t be the stuff of a world No. 4 but that’s the 2024 story for the 2023 U.S. Open champ. With four holes to go Friday he was even, which was right around the cut line, but a bogey-double bogey-bogey stretch was a trunk-slammer. Up next: a U.S. Open title defense at Pinehurst.

Rory McIlroy: This isn’t a capital-L choice, but an even-par Friday was not good enough on a day where rounds in the 60s were plentiful. A decade after his win at Valhalla, McIlroy will have to go really low on the weekend. Can he? Of course. But everyone thought the momentum from Wells Fargo would carry a bit more.