Jordan Spieth makes major charge up PGA Championship leaderboard

Jordan Spieth’s here. After a sleepy Thursday at Baltusrol, the PGA Championship has some life on Friday morning with Spieth making a big charge up the leaderboard on the opening nine of his second round. The 2015 Masters and U.S. Open champion is 4-under on his first nine holes, and now 4-under for the championship and one shot off the lead.

Spieth had to wait around on the 10th tee, where he started his second round with Bubba Watson and Sergio Garcia, for about 50 minutes before his round started. The PGA blew the horn just before he was set to tee off, using a stoppage to clean up a course that had taken on too much water. The waiting around didn’t exactly cool Spieth and he opened with three birdies in his first four holes. The work was largely done with approach shots that repeatedly tucked in tight to the cup on a course that’s extremely soft. He used the putter on his fourth hole of the day to pour one in from a moderate length and the Friday move was on.

The start should have been even better! Mixed in with those three birdies was an ugly bogey that won’t show up as a three-putt in the stats but was just that. Spieth was just 17 feet from the cup and blasted his putt from the fringe way past the hole, missed the comebacker and walked off with a bogey that could have thrown him off early in his day.

That mishap is it though for the golden child, who is making an early statement with the 18-hole leader Jimmy Walker still a couple hours from his tee time. With the course playing benign, Walker’s lead could be gone before he ever hits a shot on Friday.

After the quick start, Spieth held the line with a few pars and then feasted where you have to on this Baltusrol setup -- at those two finishing par-5s.

We’ve heard Spieth say his ball striking has been on at these last two majors, that it had come around “beautifully” after some uneven moments this season. That’s been the strength during this Friday round.

His putter just went cold in the opening round at Royal Troon and he caught the wrong side of the draw. Now he’s caught his heater and looks like he’ll be at or near the top of the leaderboard at the midpoint of the PGA.

Spieth has jumped 34 spots so far up the leaderboard. Here’s the top of the board early on Friday:

1 -- Jimmy Walker -- -5
T2 -- Jordan Spieth -- -4
T2 -- Emiliano Grillo -- -4
T2 -- Ross Fisher -- -4
T5 -- Patrick Reed -- -3
T5 -- Webb Simpson -- -3
T5 -- Harris English -- -3
T5 -- James Hahn -- -3
T5 -- Andy Sullivan -- -3
T10 -- John Senden -- -2
T10 -- Andrew Johnston -- -2
T10 -- Martin Kaymer -- -2
T10 -- Louis Oosthuizen -- -2
T10 -- Ryan Moore -- -2
T10 -- K.J. Choi -- -2
T10 -- David Lingmerth -- -2
T10 -- Rickie Fowler -- -2
T10 -- Scott Hend -- -2
T10 -- Brooks Koepka -- -2
T10 -- Vaughn Taylor -- -2
T10 -- Robert Streb -- -2
T10 -- Jason Day -- -2
T10 -- Jhonattan Vegas -- -2
T24 -- Yuta Ikeda -- -1
T24 -- Russell Henley -- -1
T24 -- Alexander Noren -- -1
T24 -- Danny Lee -- -1
T24 -- Russell Knox -- -1
T24 -- Marc Leishman -- -1
T24 -- Kiradech Aphibarnrat -- -1
T24 -- William McGirt -- -1
T24 -- Henrik Stenson -- -1
T24 -- Kyle Reifers -- -1
T24 -- Bradley Dredge -- -1
T24 -- Jon Curran -- -1
T24 -- Hideki Matsuyama -- -1
T24 -- Chris Wood -- -1
T24 -- Victor Dubuisson -- -1
T24 -- Justin Thomas -- -1
T24 -- Paul Casey -- -1
T24 -- Lee Westwood -- -1
T24 -- Jamie Donaldson -- -1
T24 -- Gregory Bourdy -- -1