Wyndham Clark surges into clear lead at Players Championship

US Open champion Wyndham Clark has opened up a five-shot lead midway through day two at the Players Championship after a second successive 65 at the TPC at Sawgrass.

Tied for the lead overnight, Clark climbed to eight-under by the turn, with birdies on 11 and 17, along with his solitary dropped shot at the 14th.

However, it was on his inward nine - the front nine - that he really exploded, Clark rattling in four birdies on the spin from 1-4, with another arriving on the sixth to reach -13, five shots clear of the field.

He wasn't finished there, concluding with a birdie at the unusually testing par-5 at the ninth.

Clark's predecessor as US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick currently has sole possession of second, lying five strokes adrift on nine-under par.

However, his 69 was marred by a double-bogey on the par-4 sixth, when the Englishman had jumped to -10, only three behind.

One stroke behind Fitzpatrick is a group containing World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, the dominant winner at Bay Hill last week, who required treatment on his neck midway through his second round.

Scheffler, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational by five shots on Sunday, is bidding to become the first player to successfully defend the Players Championship title in its 50-year history.

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2019 Players champion Rory McIlroy, who held the overnight lead after an opening 65, has begun with a messy bogey on the first after finding an awkward spot in the greenside bunker.

A strong finish to his second round saw Shane Lowry ensure his presence at the weekend, the 2019 Open champion birdieing three of his final five holes to post a round of 70 and reach three-under par.

With the projected cut currently running at one-under par, Lowry, who began on the back