J.T. Poston’s early birdie binge helped separate him from the pack as he took the 36-hole lead at the Memorial Tournament on Friday in Dublin, Ohio.
Poston shot a 7-under-par 65, while no one else in the 72-man field scored better than a 69 during the second round at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
That lifted Poston to 9-under 135 for the tournament, with Ryan Gerard one shot behind after a 69. Sam Burns (69) stands third at 6 under and Englishman Tommy Fleetwood sits a distant fourth at 4 under following a 1-over 73.
Poston, 33, has three wins on the PGA Tour but none since October 2024. He entered the week a meager 114th in the season-long FedEx Cup standings.
None of that mattered as he shot a front-nine 31 featuring six birdies and a bogey across his first eight holes. He holed birdie putts longer than 20 feet on the first two holes and added putts of 16, 17 and 11 feet before the first nine was through.
Poston made two more birdies on a clean back nine, including from 20 feet away at the 17th.
“I feel like I putted really well,” Poston said. “I hit my irons too. I hit it in a lot of the right places and we just did a good job of taking it one shot at a time. This place is tough, especially when it’s blowing like this, so nice to really feel like I played well and shot a low score.”
A victory at Jack Nicklaus’ tournament (a signature event) would rank as Poston’s biggest win to date.
“When the results aren’t there, it’s easy to start questioning stuff, having doubts, doubting your game, your golf swing,” Poston said. “You start making changes, and I’ve certainly lived that this first few, I guess, five months of the season.
“But I’ve also played this game long enough, been out here long enough to know that these stretches come. It’s not the first time I’ve had these ruts. It’s maybe the longest one that I’ve experienced so far, but have always come out the other side of it.”
Gerard was one of four co-leaders after Thursday’s opening round and climbed to 8 under for the tournament by posting birdies on three of his first six holes Friday. He played the final 12 holes in even par, which felt like a win given how difficult the course played later in the day.
“I think the golf course is playing more difficult today, so I’m excited to be done early,” Gerard said. “It’s not going to continue playing as easy as maybe I got it on the front nine, so I kind of took advantage.”
It didn’t take long for him to be proven right. Burns navigated two bogeys and hit a key second shot at the par-5 seventh hole that bounced and settled to 10 1/2 feet, setting up an eagle.
“(When) we finished up there, (caddie Travis Perkins) and I were just saying how tired we were, just because every single shot it takes so much focus and intensity and making sure that you’re committed to what you’re doing,” Burns said. “It feels that way, like a U.S. Open.”
Wyndham Clark posted a 75 and J.J. Spaun a 77 to drop to 2 under and even par, respectively, after sleeping on a share of the 18-hole lead with Gerard and Fleetwood. Meanwhile, the top two players in the world are 1 over par through 36 holes as Scottie Scheffler carded an even-par 72 and Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy struggled to a 2-over 74 on Friday.
The two-time defending champion, Scheffler bogeyed three straight holes at Nos. 8-10 before returning to even par with birdies at Nos. 13, 15 and 16.
“I felt like I was going to shoot about 90 today,” Scheffler said. “I don’t know if you were out there on the course, but I was going to be hard to find if you were out watching my group. … I couldn’t imagine I hit more than six or seven greens today.”
A small clump of players missed the cut line of 5 over as the field was reduced to the top 50 players and ties. That included Jordan Spieth (6 over after a second-round 79), Jason Day of Australia (6 over), Ben Griffin (7 over), Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre (7 over), Australia’s Min Woo Lee (8 over) and Rickie Fowler (17 over, last place following an 82).
–Field Level Media
