HAVEN, WIS. – Before clouds arrived in the late afternoon and play was suspended, Friday at Whistling Straits golf was a good walk broiled.
It got so hot in the second round of the PGA Championship that players held golf umbrellas over their heads. The Midwest heat and humidity boiled the leaderboard into a bouillabaisse of inspirations and oddities, as we were reminded that the PGA of America doesn't mind holding a tournament where the players can have a little fun.
Before play was suspended for high winds and lashing rain at 5:28 p.m., Jordan Spieth surged and Dustin Johnson sagged.
John Daly threw a club into Lake Michigan, where it was retrieved by a kid in a boat. Phil Mickelson butt-tobogganned down one of Whistling Straits' fescued hillsides, and stuck the dismount.
Hiroshi Iwata set a course record and tied a championship record with a 63, a day after shooting a 77, to make the cut in a major for the first time and become the most random player ever to shoot a 63 in a major. Asked the difference between this round and a 62 he shot in Taiwan, he said, "Just one shot."
Two guys wore tiger suits while following Tiger Woods, and Woods probably wished he could have worn a disguise, as his round was postponed while he was 4 over par, facing a third consecutive missed cut in a major.
Spieth beat Rory McIlroy head to head, then said he hated him. He was joking.
Spieth positioned himself to become the first player ever to win the American Slam — the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA — which would make him even an even more rare athlete than the quarterback who followed him on Friday, the Packers' Aaron Rodgers. "I'd like to meet him," Spieth said, and this time he was serious.