Jason Day is nicely poised heading into the weekend at The Barclays, the first tournament of the US PGA Tour's lucrative playoff series.
The consistent Australian is three shots off the lead at four-under after carding a second-round 68 on Friday at Plainfield Country Club in Edison, New Jersey.
Bubba Watson tops the leaderboard after shooting a 68 to move to seven-under, followed by four players - Henrik Stenson, Tony Finau, Zach Johnson and Jason Dufner - a shot back.
Jordan Spieth, the dominant player this season, missed the cut with rounds of 74 and 73 and will surrender his No.1 world ranking.
The tournament is the first of four playoff events in succession which each carry prizemoney of $US8.25 million ($A11.51 million).
Of the other Australians, Steven Bowditch (67) is tied for 24th at two-under and Matt Jones (72) and John Senden (70) are a stroke further back.
Adam Scott (73) at four-over and Marc Leishman (74) at eight-over both missed the cut.
Watson rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt at the 18th to cap his round.
He separated himself from a quartet of players including British Open champion Johnson, who had five birdies without a bogey in a 65.
But it was Spieth in the spotlight as the 22-year-old Texan tried to rebound from a first round 74 that marked his worst score in relation to par all season.
He had confidently vowed to bounce back, but couldn't gain any traction as he followed a first-hole birdie with back-to-back bogeys at the fourth and fifth. Another birdie at the sixth was promptly followed by two more bogeys at the seventh and eighth.
Spieth rallied briefly with birdies at 10 and 11, but ended up with a double-bogey seven at the par-five 12th where he incurred a penalty for stepping on his ball while he was looking for it in a grassy hazard.
"Tough week," said Spieth, who was already certain to miss the cut when he capped his round with a bogey at 18.
As a result, McIlroy - who skipped this week's tournament - will return to number one in the world when the rankings are updated on Monday.
Spieth and McIlroy are both scheduled to tee it up next week at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston as the playoffs progress toward the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, where a $10 million playoff bonus will be up for grabs.
"I don't know exactly what I'm going to do from here as far as how I get prepared for next week," Spieth said, welcoming the Friday start to next week's event. "I have some time to figure it out."
Share
