Between the water, the rocks, and some seriously tricky pin positions, the second round of the BMW Championship was kind of wild on Friday. These weren’t just good shots. They were the ones that make you watch the clip twice and go, “Wait, how did he do that?”
Rory McIlroy saved his round from the rocks, Rickie Fowler nearly pulled off a crazy shot, and Chris Gotterup came up short of an ace by inches. Three very different shots, but they all showed the same thing, and it looks like Bellerive was not making Friday easy for anyone.
Rickie Fowler
If one shot had everyone watching on Friday at the BMW Championship, it was Rickie Fowler‘s approach on the par-5 17th. The hole is a huge 608 yards, and after a 330-yard drive left him in the rough, Fowler still had 271 yards to the green. Most players might have played it safe. Fowler decided to go for it in two.
And he came agonizingly close to something special. His second shot flew toward the flag and stopped just eight inches from the cup. It was so close that even the PGA Tour broadcast wondered how it did not drop for an albatross.
Albatrosses happen when the second shot on a par 5 goes in the hole, three strokes under par and rare enough that most tour pros never make one in a career. Fowler had to take the eagle instead, but from 271 yards, with that lie, it was still an outrageous shot.
He came just as close once before. His approach at the 2024 Cognizant Classic also stopped inches from the cup and led to a tap-in eagle on the par-5 10th.
Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy went from the top of the leaderboard to standing on rocks beside the water. After opening with a 64 on Thursday, Friday quickly got a lot more interesting when his ball landed in one of the worst spots around Bellerive.
With almost no room for error, McIlroy had to take his recovery shot while standing on the rocks. One bad swing and the ball would have headed straight into the water. But instead of playing it safe, he went for it and pulled off a clean shot that moved back toward the flag.
It may have looked like just another par on the scorecard, but that shot was a big reason McIlroy kept his round together. He finished with a 69, five shots behind leader Wyndham Clark at the halfway point.
Rocky lies aren’t new for McIlroy at this event. He pulled his shoes off at the 2024 BMW Championship, playing a barefoot shot with one foot in the water and one on a rock at Castle Pines.
Chris Gotterup
Chris Gotterup nearly gave everyone another reason to jump out of their seats on Friday at the BMW Championship. His moment came on Bellerive’s 212-yard par-3 sixth, where he sent his tee shot straight at the flag. The ball landed safely on the green and kept rolling toward the hole. For a second, it looked like Gotterup might actually hole it. Instead, it fell agonizingly short, leaving him with an easy birdie.
That near-miss turned out to be the first sign of a really strong round. Gotterup kept the good run going, picking up more birdies around Bellerive, including one on the par-4 8th, and finished the day at 9-under, tied for fourth.
Gotterup has flirted with an ace before, too. He lipped out at the 2025 Genesis Scottish Open and nearly holed the par-3 eighth at the 2025 3M Open.
Scottie Scheffler also impressed, getting up-and-down from 195 yards out of the rough on the tough par-4 10th to set up a birdie, part of a bounce-back 5-under 65 after Thursday’s 2-over 72.
Bellerive punished anything short of precise ball-striking over the first 36 holes, and Saturday isn’t likely to ask any less of the field. Clark’s lead gives McIlroy no margin for the loose approaches that dogged him at points this week, so closing the gap comes down to hitting greens rather than chasing flags. Fowler showed Friday that his swing speed is still built for attacking par 5s when the yardage allows it, and that will matter again over Bellerive’s back nine this weekend. Gotterup, meanwhile, has already had two looks at a hole-out this week. One more like that, and it stops being a near miss.