A premiere grouping of the top three golfers in the world may have grabbed the biggest galleries this week at The Players, but only one player emerged as a top-10 contender after two days.

Thursday and Friday at Sawgrass Country Club saw the headline group of World No. 1, 2 and 3 in Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele. With round two in the books McIlroy stands out at -9, two strokes out of first place. Scheffler is currently -5 and is 15th, while Schauffele kept his streak of cuts alive with a birdie on his last hole to make the cut on the number at -2.

Despite a recent change in clubs and working out kinks on his swing McIlroy has put together a couple of impressive scoring rounds following up a 67 on Thursday with a 68 on Friday and sits just two strokes off the lead at -9.

“Hit it much better off the tee. I think I hit more fairways in six holes today than I did in 18 yesterday,” McIlroy said. “Got it in play much better and then from there was able to give myself some opportunities and obviously make some birdies early. Couldn't quite continue that on to the back nine, but it was much better off the tee.”

For the two-time defending champion Scheffler couldn’t really get things on track either day. Scheffler backed up a 69 on Thursday with a 70 on Friday and is six strokes back. Scheffler was able to overcome a five-stroke deficit in the final round last year in route to capturing his second-straight title. To do that this year he feels he will need more help from his flat stick.

“The last two days I felt like I could have scored a lot better,” Scheffler said. “There were a number of good putts I hit that just went right around the hole. At times last year those were the putts that would go in, and the last few weeks seems like they haven't been.”

For Schaffele it wasn’t just one thing he struggled with the first two days. He was able to extend his streak of consecutive cuts to 58, but is still feeling the after affects of a rib injury he suffered a few weeks ago.

“From not hitting it close enough, to duffing chips, to missing every fairway, to hitting fairways and missing greens, it’s pretty gross to be completely honest,” Schauffele said. “Being able to eke out this cut is nice, but the game feels pretty bad.”

Schauffele tees off at 8:55 Saturday along with Daniel Berger. Scheffler and Taylor Pendrith go off at 1:10 and McIlroy and J.J. Spaun are scheduled for a 2:25 start in the second to last tee time Saturday. Min Woo Lee and Akshay Bhatia are tied for the lead at -9 and will go off at 2:35.