2025 Tour Championship: Tommy Fleetwood, Cameron Young went low at East Lake in Round 2

On Friday at the Tour Championship, the wind was negligible at East Lake Golf Club. The air was heavy with anticipation of yet another thunderstorm. The grass was so soft and squishy that lift, clean, and place was in order because more rain was expected at any time. Amazingly, it wasn't Atlanta-hot.

With those conditions, low scores were ripe for the taking, and Tommy Fleetwood and Cameron Young took advantage, shooting 63 and 62, respectively, to vault up the leaderboard. Young jumped up nine spots from 12th to solo third, and Fleetwood caught first-round leader Russell Henley by the end of the day, with the two now sharing the lead at 13-under.

Fleetwood played so well that he earned the Tour’s On Fire emoji, which has been featured on the PGA Tour's official website for a while now. Young caught fire as well, and will enter Saturday's third round just two shots out of the lead.

It’s interesting that Fleetwood, who has made a recent habit of finishing second after getting to the top of the leaderboard, is there again. He was asked about his second-place finishes in a pre-tournament interview and didn’t duck the question.

“I'm not going to feed you lies and say, oh, Memphis, I thought I did everything great, or Travelers, I didn't do anything wrong,” he said. “Of course, I got things wrong down the stretch, and it didn't happen for me.”

On Tuesday, I asked him if he was more nervous trying to win last week’s BMW or playing in the Ryder Cup, and he answered Ryder Cup “for sure.” So, was it a coincidence that on Thursday, he wore the European Ryder Cup colors, a gold shirt and blue pants? Must have been. Or else he just decided to channel that Ryder Cup mojo, and his 63 on Friday was the result.

Fleetwood said he would rather get questions about not finishing a tournament off than not asking him anything at all because he believes that the second-place finishes will lead him to victory.

“I love the buzz when I am in contention, and, yeah, I'm just excited for the opportunity again,” he said after his Friday round.

Then there’s Cameron Young.

Young had seven seconds, starting in 2021, before he finally was able to catapult himself into the winner's circle at the Wyndham Championship a few weeks ago. To get the job done, he built an enormous lead and ended up winning by six shots. His four rounds included a 62 and a 63. 

To turn the corner in his play, Young said he had transformed the goal of winning into doing something he hadn’t done yet, not something he couldn’t do. Now he’s two back at the Tour Championship.

“I just hit my wedges great, controlled my distance really well, and the greens were just soft enough that it's not bouncing much of anywhere, but nothing is really spinning much either,” he said after his round concluded. “I did a really good job taking advantage of a day where, if you were in control, you were going to have some good looks.”

Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler had one of his least outstanding rounds in recent memory.  He shot a 1-under 69, with three bogeys and four birdies, including a birdie at the last. He’s five shots back in sixth place at 8-under for the week.

Coming back from the depths of we don’t know where, Patrick Cantlay went low yet again, following up his first-round 64 with a second-round 66 to put himself in a tie for fourth with Robert MacIntyre.  Cantlay, of course, won the FedEx Cup title in 2021, but hasn't tasted victory in three years, his last victory coming at the 2022 BMW Championship.