PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – There was an argument that Rory McIlroy, at 3-under, still had a chance to win his home Open Championship. Or that Keegan Bradley, 3-under, experiencing his first taste of links success, might be able to parlay that into a second major championship. Or that Robert MacIntyre, 5-under and fresh off a runner-up at the U.S. Open, might just outlast the field with his links prowess. They all felt legitimate at about 6 p.m. local time.

Technically, all those arguments can still be made. Do you feel comfortable making them? The Open Championship is now Scottie Scheffler’s to lose – and does anyone think that will actually happen?

That’s the mental pretzel Scheffler puts on the proceedings when he looks the way he looked on Friday at Royal Portrush and sits on the leaderboard where he sits. He shot 3-under without his best stuff on Thursday, but looked every part of the dominant world No. 1 in a second-round 7-under 64 that secured him the 36-hole lead and took the oxygen out of a compelling tournament, so far. Scheffler leads Matt Fitzpatrick by one and Brian Harman and Haotong Li by two. It feels like more than that, though, doesn’t it?

Avid golf watchers are ingrained to remember that these tournaments are marathons. That 72 holes is a long time for mistakes to be made and chasers to chase. Links golf is especially this way, where brutal lies and disastrous weather are lurking at every moment, just waiting to turn a tournament on its head.

A trophy won’t be given out until Sunday evening, but it sure feels like one man already has one hand on it.

“He's going to have the expectation to go out and dominate,” Fitzpatrick said of Scheffler. “He's an exceptional player. He's world No. 1, and we're seeing Tiger-like stuff. I think the pressure is for him to win the golf tournament.”

That’s true, though Fitzpatrick is talking about the man who spent the start of his week contemplating why he wants to win at all. Scheffler delivered a 5-minute soliloquy in his pre-tournament press conference that made the rounds online and in the players' locker room, saying he doesn’t draw fulfillment in golf – that the feeling of winning is fleeting and the satisfaction erodes quickly. What he cares about is his family. On the golf course, he cares about his process. The results? That’s not how he measures himself, and though he badly wants to win, he’s not satisfied when he does.

Does that sound like the type of person who seems ripe to falter over the weekend in Portrush? Or someone who will feel the immensity of winning his second major of the year and get three-fourths of the way to the career Grand Slam?

Maybe Scheffler will succumb to the pressure. Maybe he will just play poorly and get beaten. Strange things happen in sport. But Scheffler hasn’t given the world any reason to believe he will.

“I felt like I hit a few more fairways than I did yesterday,” Scheffler said in a brief post-round interview. “(I) hit some really nice iron shots, and was able to hole some putts.”

From start to finish, Scheffler’s second round was exquisite. He birdied the first hole in a downpour, played the second hole poorly but still made par, then added three birdies in a row starting at the fifth hole that forced him onto the first page of the leaderboard. He made another birdie at the 10th that was offset by his lone bogey at the 11th in the hardest rain of the week, but he was hardly stifled. Scheffler stuffed his approach on the par-3 13th and holed the putt, did so again on the par-3 16th and added another birdie for good measure on the 17th.

Scheffler, by his own lofty standards, had underwhelmed at The Open Championship. In four starts, he had two top-10s but didn’t have a legitimate chance to win either. The lone thing holding him back was the putter (he hasn’t gained strokes on the green on a links course since 2021). But Scheffler has answered the lingering putting questions this season, now a top-25 putter on TOUR statistically, and that’s carried over to The Open this week. He’s second in the field in putting through two rounds, gaining more than six strokes.

It sure seems like the stars are aligning in Scheffler’s direction. Around 100,000 fans are expected on Royal Portrush’s grounds over the final two days. It’s safe to say most will be hoping the world No. 2 McIlroy can somehow push his way into the conversation.

Don’t get your hopes up. The world No. 1 is here and he’s not going anywhere.