Xander Schauffele, Jon Rahm soar up Olympic leaderboard with matching 66s

If you followed the Xander Schauffele and Jon Rahm pairing on Friday at Le Golf National, you were in for quite a treat.

Both Schauffele and Rahm turned in 5-under 66s on day two of the Olympic Men’s Golf Competition, soaring up the leaderboard in the process.

Schauffele, who has won the PGA Championship and The Open Championship this season and could perhaps steal the Player of the Year Award away from Scottie Scheffler, improved to 11-under overall through 36 holes.

Rahm, meanwhile, sits two strokes back at 9-under.

“Five under is a good score on this property,” Schauffele said.

“Overall, sitting in a good spot coming into the weekend.”

When Schauffele walked off the golf course, he was tied for first with Hideki Matsuyama, who carded a brilliant 8-under 63 on day one, and Tommy Fleetwood, the Englishman who tore up Le Golf National on Friday with a 7-under 64.

Schauffele, Matsuyama, and Fleetwood still held a piece of the lead at day’s end. Nevertheless, Schauffele, the reigning gold medalist, is in a terrific place going into the weekend as he eyes a podium finish once again. But he has been in this position before, especially as of late. He has arguably been the best player in the sport since early May, when he finally won his first major championship at Valhalla. Schauffele also became the Champion Golfer of the Year at Royal Troon. So it comes as no surprise that he is playing well in France.

Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images

Rahm, on the other hand, struggled during the first six months of the year. He did not play well at Augusta National, missed the cut in Louisville, and then withdrew from the U.S. Open due to a foot injury. But the Spaniard has seen his game turn for the better in recent weeks, as he posted a strong finish at Royal Troon and parlayed that with his first career LIV Golf victory in Great Britain last week.

“Today, I put myself in position, and hopefully, I can keep it going on the weekend,” Rahm said, echoing Schauffele’s comments.

“It’s good to come back to a world stage and put myself in position. The Open I was there, but I wasn’t quite close enough to have a chance on Sunday. Even though I ended up top 10, it was never really a reality of winning it.”

But Rahm has an excellent chance of winning the gold medal this week, which would be his biggest win of the year. If he can keep hitting drives like he did on Friday, as he found 13-of-14 fairways, Rahm will certainly have a say in who makes the podium on Sunday.

“I missed one fairway only. And it’s not a long golf course, so you’re not going to have chances, right? And if you put it in the fairway for the most part, you are giving yourself short irons in,” Rahm said when asked what pleased him the most about his round Friday.

“But overall, ball-striking was really good. It’s always fun to play days like that where you’re swinging, and it’s always going online and almost always going the right distance, right? It just means you’re going to have a fun day, and a fun day it was.”

No doubt that Rahm had plenty of fun on Friday. But so did Schauffele; if these two players can continue their strong play over the final 36 holes, golf fans watching will have plenty of fun, too.

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.