Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm two clear of field at Memorial Tournament

almost 4 years in The Irish Times

Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm share a two-shot lead at the Memorial Tournament following a rain-delayed second round in Ohio.
After shooting an opening round 69, American Cantlay picked up six birdies with one bogey on Friday to post a score of 67 and head into the weekend on eight under.
He is joined at the top of the leaderboard by Spaniard Rahm, who also shot a 67 through 13 holes before darkness halted play.
American Scottie Scheffler was unable to replicate his opening round 67 but still did enough to lead the chasing pack, shooting a one-under 71 to sit two shots behind the leaders.
Overnight leader Collin Morikawa struggled amid the poor weather, carding two birdies, a bogey and a triple bogey through 12 holes as he fell to a share of eighth spot.
Shane Lowry was one over through 13 holes after recording double bogeys on the 12th and 17th and is two under for the tournament to sit equal-21st, while Rory McIlroy carded an even-par 72 for the second time on Friday after completing his first round in the morning. It will be enough to get him into the weekend but Ryder Cup captain Pádraig Harrington will miss out after falling back to nine over after 11 holes of his second round.
McIlroy continued to operate under the putative maxim, ‘work in progress,’ as he tries to bed-in the swing changes he’s been working on with Pete Cowen. The primary difficulty is trying to do so while playing tournament golf.
Vacillating between the excellent and the errant, the 32-year-old strived for a more consistent control over the golf ball. In that respect it was something of honours even in the first round, a level-par 72, containing a primitive tussle between good and bad golf, occasionally in the one hole.
A tee shot that flew way right and out of bounds on 10 pre-empted a double bogey but he would undoubtedly prefer to dwell on the five birdies, his immediate focus on eradicating the five or six swings that caused him considerable angst in scoring terms.
He didn’t have much time to dwell on the round as 33 minutes after he finished he was back to start his second round, this time from the 10th tee. The topsy-turvy nature of his exploits were once again represented early on, beautifully controlled iron shots setting up birdies on 12 and 14 but dropping shots on 13, the par five, 15th and 16.
He was regularly missing greens from fairways; another aberration on the 10th led to a bogey and dropped him onto the cut mark at two over par but a birdie on the 12th gave him a little wriggle room. He then made sure of things with birdies on the fourth and seventh to confirm his weekend participation.
Leading clubhouse scores
(USA unless stated, Par 72):
136 Patrick Cantlay 69 67
138 Scottie Scheffler 67 71
139 Carlos Ortiz (Mex) 71 68
140 Branden Grace (Rsa) 68 72, Lucas Herbert (Aus) 71 69
141 Chris Kirk 67 74, Joel Dahmen 68 73, Xinjun Zhang (Chn) 73 68, Kyle Stanley 70 71, Vaughn Taylor 69 72
142 Sam Burns 71 71, Viktor Hovland (Nor) 72 70, Sung-Hoon Kang (Kor) 70 72, Adam Scott (Aus) 74 68, Robby Shelton 71 71, Aaron Wise 72 70
143 Bryson DeChambeau 71 72, Charley Hoffman 72 71, Louis Oosthuizen (Rsa) 72 71, JT Poston 69 74, Jordan Spieth 76 67
144 Stewart Cink 70 74, Marc Leishman (Aus) 69 75, Rory McIlroy (NIrl) 72 72, Chengtsung Pan (Tai) 74 70, Antoine Rozner (Fra) 72 72, Kevin Streelman 72 72
145 Talor Gooch 74 71, Harry Higgs 76 69, Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Kor) 74 71, Tyler Strafaci 74 71, Sahith Theegala 69 76
146 Brandon Hagy 76 70, Martin Laird (Sco) 74 72, Doc Redman 75 71, Cameron Tringale 70 76
147 James Hahn 73 74, Sung Jae Im (Kor) 70 77, Chase Johnson 72 75, Cameron Smith (Aus) 73 74
148 Russell Henley 73 75, David Lingmerth (Swe) 75 73, Luke List 76 72, William McGirt 75 73
149 Matt Jones (Aus) 76 73, Takumi Kanaya (Jpn) 76 73, Patton Kizzire 76 73, Joaquin Niemann (Chi) 74 75
150 Henrik Norlander (Swe) 78 72, Victor Perez (Fra) 74 76
151 Sebastian Munoz (Col) 76 75, Richy Werenski 73 78
152 Peter Malnati 81 71
153 Cameron Davis (Aus) 77 76, Tyler Duncan 78 75, Tom Hoge 78 75, Haotong Li (Chn) 74 79, Joe Long (Eng) 81 72, Sepp Straka (Aut) 77 76
154 Byeong-Hun An (Kor) 79 75
155 Danny Lee (Nzl) 80 75
156 Patrick Rodgers 77 79

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