Schauffele in front at BMW by 2 shots

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk had an easy time deciding on three of his four picks for the Ryder Cup.

Xander Schauffele is making the last one a little more difficult.

Schauffele nearly holed a wedge on his second hole, rolled in a 40-foot birdie putt in the middle of his round Friday and wound up with a 6-under 64 in the BMW Championship for the lowest 36-hole score of his career and a two-shot lead over Justin Rose.

“I’m sort of in a position where I feel like a win is the only way I’d even be in consideration,” Schauffele said.

He also made it more difficult on Woods, who again goes into a weekend have to catch up to the leaders.

One day after he opened with a 62 – his lowest score since his last victory more than five years ago – Woods went eight holes before his first birdie and didn’t make many after that. He finished with two straight bogeys for a 70 that left him five shots behind in a tie for 12th.

“Very simple. I didn’t make any putts,” Woods said. “I hit a lot of beautiful putts that were on the top of the edge, and then obviously hit a couple bad ones on the last hole, but looked like all the putts were going to in. But they didn’t go in today.”

Schauffele was at 13-under 127 and will be paired in the third round Saturday with a familiar figure in Philadelphia. Rose, who played bogey-free for a 64, won the AT&T National at Aronimink in 2010, and he captured his only major at nearby Merion in the 2013 U.S. Open.

“Cheese steaks, I guess,” Rose said. “I played well. The crowd latched onto it, for sure. I get good support around here. It’s nice when they’re reminding you all the time that it’s your town, as well. It’s nice to have the added bit of enthusiasm from the crowd.”

Aronimink was even softer than the opening round from a burst of rain overnight. Starting times were moved up four hours because of a forecast for more rain. The trick Friday, when the average score was 67.33, was to avoid wedges that spun too much to back pin positions.

European Tour

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland – Hideto Tanihara shot a bogey-free 4-under 66 to lead by two shots after the European Masters second round.

The Japanese player had four birdies at the highaltitude Crans-sur-Sierre club to get to 9-under 131.

Tanihara is two strokes clear of defending champion Matthew Fitzpatrick, American Doug Ghim, and Lucas Bjerregaard.

Fitzpatrick was 1 over for the tournament early in his round, then fired off seven birdies in a 10-hole span and another at the par-4 18th. That gave the member of Europe’s losing 2016 Ryder Cup team the day’s lowest score of 64 on the 6,848-yard course in the Swiss Alps.

Ghim, a former top-ranked amateur who turned professional in June, shot a 65 to join Englishman Fitzpatrick and Denmark’s Bjerregaard.