2015 PGA Championship: Scores, leaderboard updates and more from Friday’s second round

In just three years after turning pro, Jordan Spieth has become one of the most popular players on the PGA Tour. He has embraced all of his early success and has rocketed to become the face of the game this summer.

So, when you have a face of the game that you’re proud of, what do you with it? You put it on a t-shirt of course, just as a group of fans in attendance at Whistling Straits has done.

We’ve seen the big numbers and rage-filled moments from John Daly before, but launching a club into the water is a new one. Daly usually mails it in via different DGAF ways but with Lake Michigan right there, he decided to take advantage of the scenery and dispose of a club. The launch came after he posted a 10 on a par-3.

Daly’s loss, however, was another young enterprising fan’s gain.

Jordan Spieth is back near the lead at a 2015 major championship. There have been exactly zero people in the history of golf to win the Masters, U.S. Open, and PGA Championship in the same year. Jordan Spieth will go to the weekend with yet another chance at history and in perfect position to take the “American Slam.”

Spieth is obviously the hottest player in the world, and despite the rankings right now, the best player in the world. It’s been that way since last December, when this remarkable run started in Australia. But still, to see him so close at St. Andrews to keeping a Grand Slam alive, and now back at the top of the board again at the season’s final major is astonishing. It’s starting to become clear that the Masters-US Open double was not just a hot run from an incredible world-class talent, but may be the standard for Spieth going forward.

Friday afternoon’s coverage at the PGA Championship will largely be consumed by Dustin Johnson’s efforts to extend his lead and Tiger Woods’ efforts to avoid an ignominious third straight missed cut at a major championship.

Woods should start his second round at 2:30 p.m. ET on the wrong side of the projected cut line, which currently sits at 2-over. Tiger is 3-over after a frustrating opening 75 on Thursday. While Tiger’s summer has been a mess, especially at the majors, it didn’t have to be this way. Woods caught a nice break going out early on in the first round during what could be the easiest scoring conditions of the entire week. He actually kept his ball in play for most of the morning, avoiding the big miss with his driver and playing relatively well with his irons on approach shots.

John Daly may be the Loudmouth king, but he’s got nothing on Damon Green, Zach Johnson’s colorful caddie (GIF via Luke Kerr-Dineen/For The Win).

Johnson is something of a third wheel, playing in the first two days of the PGA Championship with the marquee duo of Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. But if his sizzling birdie-birdie-birdie start to Friday’s second did not capture your attention, how about the Al Czervik socks that Green was sporting?

Tiger Woods may have just 18 holes left in his PGA Tour season. Woods is miles from qualifying for the FedExCup and is unlikely to play next week’s Wyndham Championship in Greensboro. That means the PGA Championship is likely his last official PGA Tour start of the season, and the way things keep going at the majors, making the weekend seems like a long shot.

Woods will have to sit around and wait on Friday before he tees it up with Keegan Bradley and Martin Kaymer. They’re due on the No. 1 tee at 2:30 p.m. ET (1:30 local in Wisconsin). Tiger will start the day at 3-over and almost certainly on the wrong side of the cut line. The problem is he may have squandered his best chance at an under-par round on Thursday, when the morning conditions were likely the easiest they will be all week. Matt Kuchar said it was the easiest he’d seen the course -- the wind was completely down and it was still softer from rains earlier in the week and the morning dew. That was all gone by the afternoon, when things firmed up and the wind started brutalizing the late tee times.

The first round of the final major championship of the season is in the books and the names we expected near the top of the leaderboard are there. Perhaps the least surprising development of the day was Dustin Johnson setting the early pace and going to bed with the 18-hole. It’s a spot he’s enjoyed all summer at the major championships, and he was always going to be in it at this PGA on a venue where he’s succeeded.

Johnson immediately challenged every hole at Whistling Straits off the tee, telling his coach Butch Harmon he planned to “send it all day.” He used his length to cut corners and push the limit that other players can’t touch. He opened with two straight birdies and then poured in an eagle at the 16th to go out in 32 on his first nine. When DJ has it working, Rory McIlroy is really the only player out there with the talent to keep up with him. The issue for Johnson, of course, is putting it together for 72 holes and keeping it together on Sunday. The tee-to-green game will be there all weekend -- it has been all summer. But if his putter is steady, and he can roll in a couple bombs like that eagle, he’ll get his first major championship.