ATLANTA — Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele did their best Friday to keep the Tour Championship from becoming a runaway, but more work remains if they want to supplant Scottie Scheffler atop the leaderboard.

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Morikawa fired a tournament-low eight-under 63 and Schauffele posted a bogey-free 64 at East Lake Golf Club to cut into Scheffler’s seven-shot first-round lead in the FedEx Cup playoff finale, a margin that the Texan could only scoff at following a solid second-round 66.

“Probably will definitely not have any more seven-shot leads … I’m sure you guys made a really huge deal of that,” Scheffler said sarcastically and making air quotes with his fingers when he mentioned his margin after Day One.

“We put an asterisk next to it if that helps,” he was told, to which the Texan replied, “I hope you did.”

At 21 under par, including his 10-under starting score, Scheffler leads Morikawa by four shots and Schauffele by five, though Morikawa’s raw 36-hole score of 13-under 129 is two better than Scheffler. Not that anyone is counting. Or that it counts for anything.

Scottie Scheffler hits his approach to the 18th hole in Round 2.

Mike Mulholland

Play wrapped up under dark skies after threatening weather moved in and forced play to be suspended at 5:15 p.m. ET, though no precipitation was recorded. When the second round resumed after a delay of one hour, 33 minutes, only a handful of fans remained and temperatures had cooled considerably.

Scheffler scoffed at the notion that his nearest pursuers had put much pressure on him. They went low. He still went low enough.

“It’s the second round of a tournament. It’s the second round,” said the World No. 1 player, who birdied two of his final three holes after the delay. “It’s a long tournament. Just trying to do my best to stay out there and execute shots, and today I did a pretty good job of that.”

Morikawa and Schauffele felt a bit differently about the urgency of the day. They knew they couldn’t afford to let Scheffler build an even larger advantage.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” said Morikawa, agreeing with the notion that cutting into Scheffler’s lead was paramount. “Like I said, he’s going to continue to make birdies. He’s driving it really, really well here, and you’re giving yourself enough wedges to make some scoring opportunities out there. For me, it’s just bringing energy and just kind of staying alive out there. Like I said, I’ve got a game plan that I’ve set out, and I’m really going to stick to that, just knowing that we’ve got two more rounds left of the season.”

“I played with Scottie yesterday, so this course right now with how firm the greens are, it’s a ball-striking type deal where you have to be in the fairways and hit your number, and he’s been killing everyone at that all year,” said Schaffele, who was seeded No. 2 behind Scheffler and trailed by two at the start of the competition. “I know he’s not going to let up, so there’s only one way to get him.”

And getting him hasn’t been too easy all year.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com