The wind had eased during the Thursday morning round at the Sony Open in Hawaii, the tournament with which the PGA Tour kicks off the 2026 season, allowing for a couple of 62-shot rounds and a good handful of under-par cards. However, in the second round, it began to blow from early morning, with particular intensity in the afternoon, turning the tournament’s second round into a survival day where no one was able to reach double digits in red on the leaderboard.
Five players reached the tournament’s halfway point tied at the top of the table, with nine under par. Davis Riley (-9) was one of them and alongside Ryan Gerard (-7), who climbed almost 50 positions to break into the top 10, the only ones who managed to score under 65 shots. The 29-year-old golfer from Hattiesburg is chasing his third victory on the tour and with seven birdies, one of them to close his round, and a single bogey, he has managed to reach the weekend in the best possible conditions to achieve it… if the wind allows.
“I think these playing conditions are bringing something out of me, you have to be very creative on the course,” he acknowledged after finishing his Friday round. “It’s not just about trying to make perfect swings on every shot, you have to have some feel and creativity,” he explained. A struggle on the course that was even greater for the defending champion, Canadian Nick Taylor (-9), who played in the afternoon when the wind was strongest: “The wind was strong and gusty, on some holes it was difficult to gauge distances because it was blowing crosswise. Sometimes it hindered, sometimes it helped… You had to gauge the distances well and cross your fingers.”
With a birdie putt from nearly eight metres on the par-four 15th hole and another over five on the par-four 16th, Taylor managed to take the solo lead and reach the 10-under-par barrier. But a bogey on the par-three 17th dropped him back to the same score with which Kevin Roy (-9), with whom he started the day sharing the lead, along with S.H. Kim (-9) and Belgian Adrien Dumont de Chassart (-9), who played in the morning session, managed to close the first 36 holes of the tournament at the Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.
Maverick McNealy (-8), who also played in the morning matches of the second round, delivered a 66-shot card to position himself just one behind the leaders, as did Takumi Kanaya (-8), with 66 shots on Friday, John Parry (-8), with 68, and Chris Gotterup (-8), with 69. From there, names like Patrick Rodgers (-7), Nick Dunlap (-7), or Ben Griffin (-6), among others, appear in the highlighted area of the table, with Jordan Spieth (-3) battling against “a very difficult morning” where even “on the greens it’s hard to make putts with so much wind” to avoid problems with the cut.
To continue playing over the weekend, it was necessary to close the second round below the course par. Something that one of the big favourites, Collin Morikawa (PAR), did not achieve, but the legendary Vijay Singh (-2) did, who at 62 years of age, in his 25th participation in the tournament and taking advantage of a career earnings exemption to compete in full-field events, managed to make good on the 68 he signed on Thursday to, with a round of 70 shots, with three birdies and three bogeys, enjoy making the cut.
