For the first time in her career, Karis Davidson was feeling the heat of a Major Championship.
“I felt a little bit under pressure today actually. I've never been in contention in a major after the first round, so it was a little bit of a different experience for me.”
After opening with a 65 on Thursday and sitting alone in second place through 18 holes of the 2026 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Davidson teed off early on Friday morning.
Davidson began her round with a double-bogey 6 on the par-4 1st hole, before steadying her round with 10 straight pars before a run of 2 birdies in 3 holes.
A hiccup on the par-4 16th hole led to another double bogey, but Davidson closed her round with a pair of pars to finish with a 2-over-par 74 in Round 2. She’s 4 back of leader Ina Yoon, who just started her second round.
“I hit two bad shots that cost me two double bogeys today, but really grinded in the middle and made a couple of birdies,” said Davidson. “Still seems like I'm in contention, so I think it was good to get that pressure out of the way today, and then I can hopefully have a couple good rounds on the weekend.”
After riding high from yesterday’s round, Davidson was humbled a bit on Friday morning.
“Definitely brought me down back to earth. Because yesterday felt really smooth and then obviously starting with a double I was like ah, crap,” said Davidson. “Then [it] just felt like a grind after that. I felt like it was really tough this morning with the dew on the grass.”
