Rick Gehman and Patrick McDonald join CBS Sports HQ to recap Round 2 of the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
[00:00:00] Jhonattan Vegas maintains lead
[00:02:41] Scottie Scheffler 3 shots back of lead
[00:04:51] Max Homa cards impressive 64
[00:07:15] Notable players to miss cut
[00:10:10] Rory McIlroy makes the cut
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o go far to find Scotty. CBS sports HQ PGA Championship coverage is presented by Volkswagen. It’s always a good time to buy a VW, but during deal days it’s a slam dunk. Rick Gammon and Patrick McDonald coming to a range near you. We appreciate you stopping by, fellas. Before we get to the bigger names moving up the board. Let’s talk leader Vegas I know thought of as a weekend destination, but I fear we’ve already had our fun. A couple bad passes on the way home still leads by two. Rick, where did Johnny separate himself over the first 36? Oh, boy. The Thursday round was incredible, Joe. I mean, the way that he finished in a flurry, he was making every single putt. It was it was really a masterclass of ball striking as, as well. I mean, he still leads this field in tee to green play. Now that we are where two rounds into this. And I thought it was impressive the way that he got off to a little bit of a slow start in the second round, it was it was a very, very quick turnaround from Thursday afternoon into Friday morning. And Johnny Vegas started off with a couple of left misses, which I thought was going to be troublesome all day long. He was able to get things clicked in and get that golf swing synced up. And he got this deep under par. You mentioned it Joe, to ten under at one point before making double on the 18th. I don’t actually think that’s a huge deal. There were 20 some odd doubles or worse on 18. You obviously don’t want to do it, but you’re not losing a ton of ground to the field. What I’m most interested in is now that he has to sleep on this lead for a very long time, it’s going to be a late Saturday tee time for Johnny Vegas. How he comes out and into that third round and get it gets it started. I’m glad you brought up the sleep factor, Rick. Not a lot of sleep in Vegas as is. You would know as the resident in this duo. But he talked about after his round how he was a little cranky this morning. Me too. He only got about three hours of sleep. He’s like, you know, I was really tired after that finish. I had to talk to you guys. I had to eat. I was like, oh, poor, poor Johnny Vegas. And we saw that with the start. It was pretty uninspiring, but played himself into the round. And I think today’s round was even more impressive than yesterday’s because this is a guy who, yes, he’s a four time winner on the PGA tour, but he’s never been inside the top ten after a round in a major championship. He’s never had a top 20 in a major championship and he sounded very confident. He said that his game belongs on the stage. It’s unbelievable to him that it hasn’t translated yet and we see it with his statistical profile very long off the tee, a great iron player. We talked about giving two strokes back on 18, but he gave himself chance after chance on that back nine. So I think the rest of the group here is lucky. He’s only at eight under. You know we try and measure everything in this game guys, and presence is something that’s often prevalent but hard to measure. Scottie Scheffler presence I don’t need a unit of measurement. It’s the biggest in the game and his unwavering consistency again on display here in round two. Climbs to five under with a Friday 68. I’m not saying engrave the thing, but we certainly are trending in that direction. Rick. What does Friday’s stat profile tell us about the world? Number one yeah it’s interesting. Before I even get to the stat profile, I’ll just give you the eye test. This is a little bit outside of my comfort zone, but since we’re here on site, I noticed that there were a lot of situations over the last two days, and particularly in the second round on Friday, where Scottie Scheffler was playing from a similar position as his peers, whether that’s Rory McIlroy or Xander Schauffele. And those are those guys are about as good as it gets, and it didn’t seem to matter where they were playing from together. Scotty hit the better shot. I think. Greenside on 14. Scottie made that look easy out of the bunker, taps it in for birdie while his playing peers really struggled to get the ball up and down. Sitting in the middle of the fairway on 16 again just beats his peers. And he did that relentlessly over and over and over again. And that obviously adds up. Maybe it’s a couple feet closer to the hole here. Maybe it’s hitting a fairway when you’re when you’re playing partners do not. That adds up over 18 holes. It certainly adds up over 72. I’m glad you brought up that shot on number 14, because he actually said that was his first good shot of the entire round. 1414 Greenside. Not even the drive that put him there, but the but the up and down from there. And then we saw him go on that run. He made birdie at 14. Made another one on 15. Hit a great shot into 16. Probably should have made another one on 17. Missed that really short one. A laser approach in that pin location and then a very conventional easy par on 18, which was really hard to come by. But I look back to that front nine where it really was not as sharp as Scottie said. First good shot on 14. That means one through 13. Not so good. He missed three greens in a row across that front nine. He got up and down once, twice, three times. And it was really just another day of his totality rising to the top. It will be must see stuff on Saturday. Scottie Scheffler sitting at five under alongside Max Homa playing partners on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. Can’t miss it on Saturday. Let’s talk Homa here fellas, because that’s the round of the day 60 4A7 under getting him to that five under number. And this is not something we’ve seen out of max at the majors or throughout the season. Where did this form come from, Patrick, in your estimation? I think it came from a lot of self-belief. And he mentioned afterwards how he’s taking a bit more ownership of his golf swing. Think about all the changes that Max Homa has gone through this year. Equipment, apparel, coach, caddie, swing. That is a ton. He even mentioned that his t-12 at Augusta National. Rick. It was smoke and mirrors. He felt like his short game really bailed him out. It didn’t give him too much confidence, but he found something coming into this week. A swing thought that he came up with by himself that he felt a lot of confidence in, and we saw it today. He led the field in strokes gained off the tee. Obviously a lot of that came with that near hole in one on number 14. But he’s been great so far this week with the driver in hand. Ten fairways on Thursday, ten again on Friday. If he hits 20 fairways over the weekend I don’t see him going anywhere. Yeah he looks a lot like the 2022 or 2023 version of Max Homa, which is a guy who, years prior to that, found a way to get better statistically, every single year of his professional career. That’s difficult to do, and it speaks to his willingness to work. It speaks to his willingness to try new things. And I think he found out last year that sometimes trying new things doesn’t always work out. And Patrick is right. He tried everything different and the swing looks a lot more synced up to me. He looks confident. It does not look like he is grinding over every shot. Remember we saw for basically six months he would be on the putting surface with with putter in hand, and he’d still be working on that, on that movement with his, with his driver. So clearly something was not lined up for him. But I’m excited to see what happens to this swing that he has given us so much confidence in on the practice range or in practice rounds at home now, not only in tournament competition but in major championship conditions. And oh, by the way, when we ratchet up the pressure on the weekend, nobody better off the tee in round two. Gained nearly three strokes off the tee. Max Homa, hitting it to a foot on a par four will help those numbers, no doubt about it. But he was consistent throughout his day there off the tee. We don’t have everybody making their way to the weekend. The top 70 and ties excuse me here. And that does not include some of the bigger names in the game. Jordan Spieth will have to wait another year in search of his career Grand slam. He misses it by one as the Shane Lowry, who caught a tough break, finding an impacted golf ball and letting the world know it. Sepp Straka, coming off his latest achievement, missing it by a number as well over Thomas and Matsuyama, also on the wrong side. So fellas, it begs the question, your biggest disappointment on the outside of the Cutline, Rick Damon is who? They’re all pretty big disappointments. I mean, Hideki Matsuyama has cut streak at major championships comes to an end. I think that was the longest active streak that we that we had in the world. But I look at Ludvig Oberg and this is, you know, I give him a lot of grace. It’s only his sixth major championship, but he has spoiled us to this point in his career. And I worry about what has happened to his game since the victory at Torrey Pines earlier this year. He just hasn’t really been good, and we’re seeing the stat profile fall into danger zones. He’s really struggling with the approach play. He is struggling with the putter and to see the way that he goes about the Green Mile here, where a stretch of the golf course, that is obviously very difficult. But Ludvig Oberg should be able to separate himself from the field. He bogeys 16, he doubles 17, he doubles 18. He had another six on the card on a par five. That is not good and that is the burden of high expectations that we have on Ludvig Oberg, who many, myself included, think that he’s probably going to be a future number one player in the world at some point. Oh, okay. Yeah, I like it. Not even on that list was the three time winner, Brooks Koepka. He’s gone so far down back to back, missed cuts and major championships in the same season in the first time in his career also. But I’m going to go with another PGA tour winner and a guy who everyone liked coming into the week, and it was Justin Thomas, a winner here. Obviously in 2017, contended over the weekend at Philly Cricket club, has contended seemingly every single week on the PGA tour and seemingly never over the weekend in major championships since that Southern Hills. I kind of thought this week was going to be different because of that comfort level around this place, but we saw with JT that his game is built for the PGA tour stage, and it’s not quite built for the major stage. I look back to Rory McIlroy in that 2018 area when he was great on the PGA tour, and he made it a real effort to get better at major championships and start preparing differently, and we saw it with that run of US open success that Rory has gone through. Something needs to change with JT on this stage because in his last 12 it has been six missed cuts, five finishes outside the top 30 and the one good finish, a top ten. Valhalla, which I think you could debate was a good major test. Nobody more disappointed in JT than JT that we know he will not be there for the weekend. We have 74 players on to the weekend and with zero margin, it’s world number two. Rory McIlroy making his way inside the cut line. A circuitous route there at his 36th hole of this tournament to get inside the cut line, avoid double bogey. It would have been disaster. I guess I’ll just ask it this way, guys. Sitting there on the cut line. Patrick McDonald. Can Rory McIlroy win? I don’t think so. With the state of his current game right now, it is so loose. It looks so far from what we saw in those middle two rounds at Augusta National when it was so tight, and you take the 16 holes on Thursday at Augusta National into consideration as well. I think the biggie here, the news that came out today is that he has a non-conforming driver head. Early in the week it was identified put a new driver in play, someone like Bryson DeChambeau. That happens every single second, every single week for him. Remember he did that at the US open, Pinehurst number two. But for someone like Rory McIlroy, these guys are very comfortable with their clubs. And I know he’s arguably the greatest driver of all time. But it does play some mind games and with how loose his game is, I know how comfortable he is around this place. I don’t really see it happening. I would love nothing more than to disagree with Patrick McDonald, but I don’t think I can. I don’t think Rory has it this week. You know, it is an easy comp to Augusta National where basically for 67 holes, Rory was flawless and the other five he made double on all of them. And it was it was just a matter of time before he worked those doubles off the scorecard and put enough circles on to make up for it. We’re not seeing anything close to that this week. Patrick mentioned how bad the driver has been. He’s put himself in a bunch of awkward situations. He has struggled with the speed of the greens, his short game has not been particularly sharp, and every time that he gets himself in a position to go on a run, he and he was four under through ten in the second round. He just can’t hold on to it. And there are too many danger spots out here at Quail Hollow. There are too many players ahead of him. There are too many guys named Scottie Scheffler who have a multiple shot lead on him. So. So no, it is it is incredibly unlikely that Rory wins this golf tournament. And quite honestly, I mean, I need to see something this weekend. It just it really hasn’t been good for the first two days. Plenty of the best rose to the top, McIlroy with still more rising to do as he makes the cut on the number. Patrick McDonald Rick Damon joining us from Quail Hollow. Thank you fellas and you know where to be on the weekend Saturday and Sunday coverage coming your way at 1:00 eastern time on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. Jim Nan, Trevor Immelman, our award winnin
