Aussie into third as storm causes carnage; star’s bonkers luck: Players Champs Wrap

The second round of the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass wreaked havoc in the field, with a host of top players falling apart in high winds on the already-brutal course.

Play has been halted just before 8.30am AEDT due to a gathering storm in the area, with the forecast likely to mean no more action takes place today.

South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout leads the field on eight-under overall through 14 holes, having started the day four-under. He is tied with Adam Svensson of Canada on seven-under overall through 11 holes.

Australian Min Woo Lee is well in the hunt, having shot a fine 68 in the opening round to start the day four under. He is currently tied for third on six-under overall through 15, where he made his fifth birdie of the day to go with three bogeys.

He is tied on six-under with Collin Morikawa (through 11) and Ben Griffin, an American debutant who backed up his 67 in the opening round with a solid 71. Griffin took time off the tour a couple of years ago after feeling burned out, and even became a mortgage loan broker before his return to the tour.

Another Aussie superstar in Jason Day picked up his second-straight 70 to move to four-under overall, currently tied for eighth.

American debutant Chad Ramey was comfortably in the lead at nine-under overall and one-under for the round through seven holes, before a nightmare quadruple bogey on the infamous Island Green 17th. Having hit a birdie on the par-13 hole in his opening round, this time he missed the water twice before finally carding a seven.

Ramey started with back-to-back birdies on his second and third holes, before giving one back the following hole – the 12th – and needing a brilliant par save to avoid giving up another shot. But his Island Green meltdown dropped him back to five-under overall.

Elsewhere, Matthias Schwab had a truly one in a million moment. He sprayed a shot left into the fan gallery on the second hole, only for the ball to bounce and land inside a moving golf cart – driven by a news crew covering him. When he took a drop – on a sloping path – the ball somehow bounced multiple times and came to rest exactly where it had been dropped!

“Probably if we tried this we wouldn’t have made it in a million times,” Schwab said.

He wasn’t the only player to toy with lady luck. Jordan Spieth was saved from sending a tee shot into the water when it hit a fan and deflected safely. He later went to check on the fan and gave him a glove in recompense.

Viktor Hovland also enjoyed a healthy slice of luck, with his tee shot on 17 looking set to fall short – only to bounce extremely high off the nearest edge. It seemed certain that the ball would roll off the far side of the green, but it bounced perfectly to nestle into the thin strip of rough.

World number one Jon Rahm withdrew before his second round due to illness, while world number three Rory McIlroy is currently six-over par overall through ten holes and looks set to miss the cut.

Jordan Spieth was another star to struggle, shooting a three-over 75 to fall to even overall.

But world number one Jon Rahm will have seen a silver lining to being forced to withdraw ahead of the second round due to a stomach illness: at least he missed out on the carnage on the course.