CROMWELL, Conn. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler could not convert a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole Friday at the Travelers Championship, narrowly missing out on a chance to join Jim Furyk as the only players in PGA Tour history with two sub-60 rounds.
Scheffler had to settle for a 10-under 60 on the soft TPC River Highlands course, setting an early target atop the scoreboard on a day of extreme low scoring at the final signature event of the regular season.
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Viktor Hovland, of Norway, tees off the 18th hole during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, putts on the 17th green during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler hits at the first tee during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler gives a thumbs up to his caddie on the 9th hole during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler reacts after finishing the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
“Going out yesterday in the afternoon, when the greens get firm out here and the wind starts to blow, it can get tricky pretty quickly,” Scheffler said. “Going out this morning, you definitely had a feeling the conditions were going to be easier, so you need to go out there and try and take advantage of it.”
Scheffler was at 16-under 124, two shots ahead of Viktor Hovland with the afternoon starters still on the course.
“At the end of the day, I was very focused on just my execution out there,” Scheffler said. “Who knows what the lead is going to be after today. I’ve put myself in position now this week. Go home, get some rest, and get ready for tomorrow.”
Playing three groups in front of Scheffler, Hovland needed to birdie the final two holes for a 59. He settled for a pair of pars and a 61, matching his career best on tour.
“Certainly it was more gettable today than it was even yesterday,” Hovland said.
Akshay Bhatia had a 62 to match first-round leader Eric Cole at 12 under. Cole parred the final eight holes in a 65.
“I know how this golf course can play,” Bhatia said. “You got to kind of keep making birdies and try and limit mistakes.”
Scheffler shot 59 in his rookie season in 2020 in the second round of The Northern Trust at the TPC Boston, another rain-softened course that featured low scoring. Dustin Johnson was 11 under through 11 holes that day and had to settle for a 60.
“Some days they’re kind of hanging on the edge and not quite going in, and then other days they’re finding the bottom of the cup,” Scheffler said. “Today was a day definitely in which most of them were finding the bottom of the cup.”
Furyk shot his first sub-60 round in the second round of the 2013 BMW Championship at Conway Farms outside Chicago, a 59 that included a bogey on his card. Three years later, he set the PGA Tour record at the Travelers Championship with a 58 in the final round.
Furyk did not win either tournament.
“It was like, `It would be cool to shoot 59, but somebody has already shot 58 here, so it’s not even the course record,’” Scheffler said.
Scheffler, who won the Travelers Championship two years ago, is coming off a tie for fourth in the U.S. Open when he played in the final round. His last victory was The American Express in the California desert, his first start of the year.
Scheffler bogeyed the par-4 second, leaving a wedge from the fairway well short and missing an 8-foot par try.
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Viktor Hovland, of Norway, tees off the 18th hole during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, putts on the 17th green during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler hits at the first tee during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler gives a thumbs up to his caddie on the 9th hole during the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Scottie Scheffler reacts after finishing the second round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Friday, June 26, 2026, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
NEW YORK (AP) — Most of the U.S. stock market rose Friday after oil prices eased back to where they were before the war with Iran, but drops for stocks swept up in the mania around artificial-intelligence technology kept the market in check.
The S&P 500 finished nearly flat and slipped less than 0.1% to close out just its second losing week in the last 13. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 44 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Stocks got a boost as the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, dropped 3.8% to $72.60. That’s lower than it was the day before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, which eventually led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the curtailment of oil shipments worldwide.
The easier oil prices helped stocks of companies with big fuel bills, and American Airlines Group climbed 1.7%.
Health care stocks, meanwhile, were some of the strongest forces pushing upward on the market after a committee of the European Medicines Agency recommended several medicines for approval and the extension for another dozen of their therapeutic indications. That included one for Eli Lilly, whose stock jumped 7.1%.
Besides Lilly, nearly two out of every three stocks within the S&P 500 rose. But more drops for AI stocks helped to overshadow them.
After soaring to tremendous heights and leading the market for years, AI stocks have been under pressure recently because of worries their profits can’t possibly keep pace with the tremendous rallies for their stock prices. And those drops have an outsized effect because AI stocks have become Wall Street’s largest and most influential, giving movements for their stock prices more weight on indexes than others.
Micron Technology’s drop of 6.7% was the heaviest weight on the market, for example. The maker of memory for computers has been a big winner this year, with its stock roughly quadrupling, because the AI boom has created a surge of demand for its products.
But investors saw the downside of that surge Thursday, when Apple said it had to raise prices on laptops and other products by significant percentages to make up for the increases in memory prices. The worry is that such higher prices could ultimately lead to lower demand.
Highlighting the roller-coaster ride that AI stocks have been on, SpaceX briefly dropped 2.9% in the morning and fell below $149. It then erased the loss to swing to a gain of 3.5% before finishing with a modest rise of 0.2%.
After initially selling its stock at $135 apiece in its ballyhooed initial public offering earlier this month, SpaceX’s price briefly soared above $225 within its first few days of trading. Besides rockets, Elon Musk’s company also owns the xAI artificial-intelligence business.
The day’s largest loss in the S&P 500 was a 23.7% drop for ON Semiconductor, which said it agreed to buy Synaptics in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $7 billion.
All told, the S&P 500 slipped 3.47 points to 7,354.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 44.51 to 51,876.11, and the Nasdaq composite fell 60.99 to 25,297.62.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased with oil prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.37% from 4.40% late Thursday.
It fell after a report showed expectations for inflation in the coming year inched down among U.S. consumers to 4.6% from 4.8% in May. That’s still high, but moves downward mean less chance of a vicious cycle where expectations for higher inflation drive changes in behavior that create higher inflation.
High yields in bond markets worldwide caused by worries about inflation have been threatening to slow economies, and they have already sent rates higher for mortgages and other kinds of loans. High yields also hurt prices for investments, particularly those seen as the most expensive. That raises the pressure on AI winners.
Asian stock markets began Friday with sharp drops because of losses for AI winners.
In Japan, a 12.5% plunge for Softbank Group Corp. helped pull the Nikkei 225 index down by 4.2%. The company is a major investor in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and a report in The New York Times suggested OpenAI is considering delaying an initial public offering of its stock to next year from the second half of this year.
Such an IPO would give OpenAI the chance to raise more cash to spend on data centers, as well as the opportunity for early investors like Softbank to cash out some of their holdings. But the recent stumbles for SpaceX’s stock and for AI stocks broadly may be a signal of less appetite for big AI stocks among investors.
In South Korea, SK Hynix fell 8.4%, and Samsung Electronics sank 5.3%. That helped pull the Kospi 5.8% lower and trim its gain for the year so far to 99.6%.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Traders Robert Charmak, left, and Mark Puetzer work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Michael Gagliano works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, June 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
