In the second round of the 2025 Travelers Championship, TPC River Highlands was much more difficult than usual thanks to strong winds that pushed the average score on Friday. Justin Thomas and Denny McCarthy handled Connecticut’s best conditions with the best conditions, posting a 64-under 64 to make a big move on the leaderboard as the 18-hole leader struggled to keep the distance between himself and the rest of the field.
Thomas first shot in the tie with Scotty Schaeffler and Tommy Fleetwood at 9 under. Jason Day sits between them. Jason Day is competing for him for his first PGA Tour victory in two years by matching 66s in the first two rounds.
Thomas did a lot of his damage with the back nine as he made five birdies in a row from the 11th to the 15th to the 15th. He made over 146 feet of putts ion on Friday, riding a hot putter for one of the best rounds of the day, avoiding mistakes from tee to green despite the wind.
After his round, Thomas spoke about how he played into his strengths in terms of shot shape and shotmaking, noting that there is nothing like a stock shot in winds above 20 mph.
“I don’t really play golf swings, so I think that’s why I had some good rounds in these situations. I have to play golf more,” Thomas said. “If you get this way here and in any way you get this method or weight, you’re not over the ball. If the wind is blowing 25 or 30 from your left shoulder, I need to understand how to avoid going right, and I need to keep it lower than this vertex.
Heading towards the weekend, the wind is settling in the 5-10 mph range. It offers more scoring opportunities, perhaps with Thomas standing up, as Thomas is not excited to see the wind settle.
Fleetwood shot the leaderboard on Friday, shooting 65, surged to the joint lead. He made similar moves on the back nine, but when Thomas attacked five birdies together in a row, Fleetwood chose to make the Eagles with Nos 13 and 15 before tacking another birdies on Nos 13 and 15.
In the wind, Fleetwood’s ball strike was a weapon, and he slammed a laser there in the afternoon to thrust through the gust of wind. One of his best swings came on the 18th as he cut wood from the tee and fired the fairway wood 12 feet away, setting up a simple two-putt par before putting in 234 yards in the par 4.
For the second day in a row, Schaeffler remains tied to the lead, but the 2025 PGA champions missed the opportunity to take full control of the weekend’s tournaments. Schaeffler went to the 17th tee and was 11 years old, but once again came across the penultimate hole. After finding the fairway bunker from the tee, he was short in the water along with the second bogey, leading to a double bogey that dropped him to the share of the lead with Thomas.
Even with that misstep, Schaeffler was pleased with how he played on Friday and found himself hit every shot he wanted.
“I played well again today,” Schaeffler said. “I bogeyed the six early. I chunked it on my second shot. I then hit each shot and then got no results from it.
That mindset is important in terms of players faced on Friday. Because the guessing game with the wind – can drive players crazy when they remember a gust of wind or when it lies down. Schaeffler continued to focus on the process and felt like he hit the ball like 62 on Thursday, but the conditions were just difficult to score. Now he has shown that calm conditions are heading for a weekend where more opportunities are offered and could lead to a really low score on Thursday.
leader
1. Scotty Schaeffler, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood (-9): Given that the conditions are to return to what they were on Thursday, it’s not surprising if someone jumped this trio to the leaderboard by the time they tee off on Saturday’s final pairing. They have a good idea of how the scores will be based on how the morning wave handles TPC River Highlands, which may help them get into the offensive mindset earlier.
Candidate
4. Jason Day (-8)
T5. Denny McCarthy, Austin Eckroth (-7)
T7. Nick Taylor, Keegan Bradley (-6)
T9. Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, and 2 others (-5)
The afternoon was overshadowed by Fleetwood doing right behind him, but for the second day in a row, the Australian moved him out of the lead by lifting 66 people. McCarthy’s 64 matched Thomas that day’s round, moving up the leaderboard 31 spots to the top five, and making it into the top five with one of the best ball strike rounds. In the classic McCarthy style, he also drilled holes in putts over 100 feet.
Eckroat held a joint 18-hole lead with Scheffler, but was stagnant in a tough situation at 71. Keegan Bradley and Rory McIlroy lead most of the story, but after eating a positive vibe together on Thursday, it didn’t really happen in strong winds on Friday.
Bradley Redwater was a uniform 70, while McIlroy dropped the shot at 71. It would have been much worse as he thinned out the approach from the bunker, including the bogey on the 17th, skipped the ball into the water and entered the green left fairway.
As conditions improve towards the weekend, anyone within a few shots of the lead will feel better about their chances of posting some low scores and giving them a chance to win. The question is whether Schaeffler will open enough doors for someone to pass him. As we saw on Thursday, he could also lower it at TPC River Highlands, and on the weekend he might take something very special over the weekend to overtake him for the Travelers Championship, out of his current pace.
2025 Travelers Championship updated live odds, picks
Odds via betmgm
- Scotty Schaeffler (11/10)
- Justin Thomas (11/2)
- Tommy Fleetwood (11/2)
- Jason Day (14-1)
- Rory McIlroy (16-1)
- Keegan Bradley (25-1)
- Denny McCarthy (28-1)
Given the money fit to bring Schaeffler on Thursday night, the sudden tight leaderboard at the top created an interesting live betting market. I like Thomas more than the pair Fleetwood tied to Schaeffler because I talked after his round about having a big feel to the environment at TPC River Highlands. It appears to be transferable throughout the weekend, and we saw earlier this year in the RBC legacy that a short course he doesn’t require constantly hitting the driver was a good thing for him.
It’s also worth daily at 14-1, as it has been stable in 66 pairs so far in both simple and difficult conditions. I don’t foresee him backing up, and if Schaeffler stalled at all over the weekend, the day certainly could have overtaken him. If Schaeffler can replicate Thursday 62, this is all controversy, but he certainly fought in the solid but apparent second round this week with others opening the doors to many others.
