Live leaderboard: Round 2 at TPC Boston

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Each day at U.S. Open, PGATOUR.COM’s staff writers will dive into the big issues and questions everyone is discussing. Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas each admitted they hadn’t known the USGA changed the playoff format, from an 18-hole Monday playoff to a two-hole Sunday one. What else surprised you from the press conferences so far? Sean Martin, Senior Editor: I appreciated Jason Day’s boldness and honesty. “I think if I want to be the best player in the world, I’ll be the best player in the world,â€� is a quote that really stuck out to me from Tuesday. He definitely seemed inspired. Ben Everill, Staff Writer: Hearing Jason Day talk about Tiger Woods’ “MC Hammer pantsâ€� from 2004 at Shinnecock and then Bubba Watson’s messy burrito habits was something I was not expecting in the lead-up to this tournament. Jonathan Wall, Equipment Insider: Probably D.J. admitting he hit mid irons and even a couple long irons into some of the holes at Shinnecock. And here I thought he carried driver and a bunch of wedges.  Cameron Morfit, Staff Writer: Given the way the ’04 U.S. Open ended, I’m surprised that the only complaining has been about the traffic. But it’s early. Shinnecock’s greens are like upside-down cereal bowls, and once balls start landing in the wrong places and funneling 50 yards away, it’s on. Who is the one player almost no one is talking about who is nonetheless on your radar?  Martin: I don’t think enough people are talking about Tommy Fleetwood. He finished fourth in last year’s U.S. Open and remains very much one of the world’s best players. I think he’ll like Shinnecock Hills’ linksy characteristics. Everill: Lucas Herbert. The 23-year-old Australian dominated the Portland Sectionals and is a highly touted youngster out of Australia. Won’t be overawed and could easily replicate Cameron Smith’s U.S. Open debut from 2015 (T4). Wall: Tommy Fleetwood. He’s finished outside the top 25 three times in 10 TOUR starts this season. And did I mention he was fourth last season at the U.S. Open? He has the game to contend at Shinnecock. Literally no one is talking about him. Morfit: He got injured, so Brooks Koepka fell out of the conversation. Now he’s back. He’s posted 63s in two of his last three starts and said in his presser, “I feel like I always play well at U.S. Opens. I play very conservative, middle of the greens a lot of times, and I feel like major championships are kind of where I shine.â€� I’d be shocked if the defending champ doesn’t finish in the top 10. Dustin Johnson looked strong in winning the FedEx St. Jude Classic by six, but is Shinnecock a course that favors touch around the greens more than power off the tee?  Martin: I think the short game is going to be very important this week. Between the wind and the sloping greens, those chipping areas around the putting surfaces are going to get plenty of work. The last three U.S. Opens here were won by stellar short games. Raymond Floyd was one of the best chippers in the game. Corey Pavin hit less than half the greens when he won here. Retief Goosen hit only six greens in the final round. Everill: It is clearly a mixture of both but there must also be a premium on accuracy. At the end of the day the guy who gets up and down from trouble and makes the clutch par putts will hoist the trophy. Wall: I think you need to have an all-around game to contend. It’s important to find the fairway, but you can’t continually lay back and have mid and long irons into the greens. Even the best short game in the world won’t keep you from making a couple bogeys with that game plan. Morfit: I don’t think a bomber wins, especially as dry as it is this week. Shinnecock is a second-shot course (Goosen was a specialist with the irons), and being crafty and economical around those crazy green complexes counts for a lot, too. Phil Mickelson is making his 27th U.S. Open start, and says he loves the setup. He’s tried just about everything. How would you prepare if you were him?  Martin: I think take it easy and rely on your past work here. He’s played here twice and done well. And energy management is key for Mickelson at this stage in his career, as we saw at THE PLAYERS Championship. Everill: By renting a bigger yacht than Tiger’s and parking it right next door. Phil needs to be Phil – that is relaxed and trying to be funny. Forget all this career slam pressure. Just go out and play. Wall: What he’s doing right now: Resting. Phil played last week in Memphis and needed a recharge. Playing the course in advance of this week meant he didn’t need to grind out practice rounds. Work on the short game and conserve energy for what should be a 72-hole grind at Shinnecock.   Morfit: Golf Channel’s Tim Rosaforte has him practicing and playing off-site at nearby Friar’s Head with, among others, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. I hope they’re taking a cart, because he should do as little as possible to preserve his legs and (admittedly) sporadic ability to drill down and focus. It’s a long week.

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When he’s not on the golf course, Cameron Tringale likes to play tennis. He’s a runner, and the Californian enjoys hiking and camping, too. “Just all the outdoor stuff,â€� Tringale says. He’s even tested himself by climbing up the side of a mountain. More than once, too. Now, Tringale doesn’t have his own gear and he doesn’t go mountaineering on a regular basis. But he has gone climbing in the Santa Monica Mountains near his home, as well as Red Rock Canyon outside Las Vegas. “I like the challenge,â€� Tringale explains. “I like the feeling of the accomplishment. When you get to the top of a route, it feels good. “It’s also pretty nerve wracking at times. Your heart rate gets going. It’s fun to just put yourself in that position. It’s relatively safe. So, it’s pretty fun.â€� The 30-year-old estimates he was just out of Georgia Tech when he climbed for the first time. Tringale and Smith, who played on the golf team at Pepperdine, went up into the mountains for several climbs over the holidays that year. “You get a little nervous,â€� Tringale says. “When you are reaching up, you have to lurch up for a hold. You are hoping you grab it. If you don’t, you will fall. You have got someone holding the rope at the bottom.â€� Luckily for Tringale, he’s never fallen more than a few feet. And when he has climbed, he made sure to take precautions. Tringale probably hasn’t climbed in three years or so. His farthest trek up the face of a mountain was “pretty high,â€� maybe several hundred feet, says the man who obviously has no fear of heights. “We went up, kind of had a base camp on the ledge, and then up from that ledge even farther,â€� Tringale says. “(But) I don’t have crazy claiming aspirations. “Like I said, I’ve just kind of gone when I have been invited. I find the challenge enjoyable.â€� Tringale says rock climbing isn’t a “passionâ€� but he’s happy to have had the opportunity to go. And besides, it goes along well with his other interests. “I like being outside,â€� he says. “And usually, you have got to hike back to where the climbs are. I enjoy hiking, I enjoy being outdoors, being in nature.â€� Surfing and snowboarding are also squarely in Tringale’s wheelhouse. Not to mention, he puts skydiving and running a marathon on his bucket list. So does anyone worry about him when he scales the side of a mountain? “I don’t know who  I mean, my mom might worry, but what mom doesn’t,â€� he says with a smile.

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In pursuit of his first PGA TOUR victory, 21-year-old Aaron Wise weathers a 4-hour rain delay, pulls away at the turn, and fires a final-round 65 to capture the AT&T Byron Nelson. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Wise outplayed fellow 54-hole co-leader Marc Leishman to salt away a comfortable three-stroke victory at Trinity Forest, his audacious 23-under total making him the seventh first-time winner this season. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1 With the 20-somethings already in command of the FedExCup (Justin Thomas), and having won the last four majors, Aaron Wise, 21, stamped himself for greatness. Not that we didn’t see him coming. He was the 2016 individual NCAA champion when he also helped his Oregon Ducks to the team title, and becomes just the second player, after Mackenzie Hughes, to win on the PGA TOUR after having won on the Web.com Tour and the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada. Now he has his sights set on being in the top 30 at season’s end. “I haven’t had time to reassess my goals, but moving up to 18 on the FedExCup is incredible,� Wise said. “Not many rookies have made it to the TOUR Championship.� That may be so, but last year rookie Xander Schauffele won it on the way to top rookie honors. A good omen for the latest AT&T Byron Nelson winner? 2 This was just the 26th start of Wise’s TOUR career, and he’s the first rookie to win the Byron since Keegan Bradley in 2011. Also, at 21 years, 10 months and 29 days old, he’s the youngest Byron winner since Tiger Woods (21 years, 4 months, 18 days) in 1997. Oh, and Wise is also the youngest winner on TOUR this season, and the youngest overall since Si Woo Kim (21 years, 10 months, 16 days) captured THE PLAYERS Championship a year ago. Only once on Sunday did Wise show his youthful inexperience. “Back nine,� he said, “my caddie kind of calmed me down. Like, ‘Dude, you got to focus on these shots, we’ve got some big shots coming up. We’ll finish before dark, don’t worry about that.’ Kind of calmed me back down.� The details on Wise’s rapid rise: He has played eight straight rounds under par, finishing T2 and first at the Wells Fargo Championship and AT&T Byron Nelson, respectively, to rack up 745 FedExCup points and jump from 105th to 18th in the standings. He’s also up to 66th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The top 60 after the FedEx St. Jude Classic get into the U.S. Open. 3 Runner-up Marc Leishman notched his sixth top-10 finish and his second runner-up (P2, THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES) this season, but after an opening-round 61 he was hoping for more. Culprit: the putter. “He hit the ball incredible,� Wise said. “I knew he would have a ton of looks. He did. Unfortunately, he didn’t make all the putts and I was able to edge him out.� Leishman, who jumped from 33rd to 14th in the FedExCup, led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week (+2.226) but struggled, relatively speaking, on Sunday (.085). 4 With Trinity Forest all but defenseless, several players enjoyed career-low performances. Keith Mitchell (T3) shot a career-low, 8-under 63 in the final round. J.J. Spaun (T3) also shot 63 and came one shot shy of tying his career-low round on TOUR (8-under 62, R3, 2017 RSM Classic). Not to be outdone, Branden Grace (T3) fired a final-round 62 to match his career low and the lowest-ever round in a major, which he shot at The Open Championship last summer. “Feels like a breath of fresh air coming to something different,� Grace said of first-year Byron host Trinity Forest. “Really is nice. I really enjoyed the golf course, I enjoyed how it played.� 5 Despite the low scores, Trinity Forest’s big greens could be vexing. Adam Scott (65, T9), who moved up to 61st in the world and barely missed automatically qualifying for the upcoming U.S. Open (top 60 on May 21 and June 11), said he had trouble reading the breaks. Ditto for Jordan Spieth, who is a Trinity member but still didn’t make much while finishing T21 at the Byron. Both now head to one of their favorite TOUR stops in the Fort Worth Invitational. Scott won the tournament in 2014, while Spieth, a runner-up in 2015 and 2017, won it in 2016. “I don’t struggle reading the greens at Colonial,� Spieth said. FIVE INSIGHTS 1 Wise hit the longest drive of the week, a 402-yard blast at the ninth hole Saturday, ranked first in Greens in Regulation (91.67 percent), and recorded the highest GIR percentage by a winner on TOUR since 1997. He is the first this season, and the first since Dustin Johnson last year (THE NORTHERN TRUST), to rank either first or second in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (Wise was second) and Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (first) en route to victory. 2 Five players have a win and a runner-up in consecutive starts this season: Wise; Justin Thomas (won The Honda Classic, P2 at World Golf Championship-Mexico Championship); Jason Day (won Farmers Insurance Open, T2 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am); Jon Rahm (2nd Sentry Tournament of Champions, won CareerBuilder Challenge); and Dustin Johnson (T2 WGC-HSBC Champions, won Sentry Tournament of Champions). Wise, 56th in the FedExCup, is the only one of the five players who is not currently in the top 10 in the standings. 3 With the wind mostly down, Trinity Forest was a pushover. There were 12 bogey-free rounds Sunday, with the course softened by rain, and Branden Grace shot 62 on his 30th birthday. Wise’s 23-under total was the third-lowest total in relation to par this season, behind only the CIMB Classic and Sentry Tournament of Champions, where 24-under won. 4 Wise moved up a healthy 38 spots to 18th in the FedExCup, but was outdone, in a way, by Parker McLachlin. His T26 finish at Trinity moved him from 242nd to 203rd, up 39 spots. 5 Only one player, Jimmy Walker, recorded top-10 finishes at both the AT&T Byron Nelson (T6) and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (T8). Walker, who was coming off a T2 at THE PLAYERS, is clearly back from his Lyme Disease, and he’s dialed in. 

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