Xander Schauffele, in first place, is Team USA's best chance at men's golf medal at Olympics

KAWAGOE, Japan — Sleep had not come easy to Xander Schauffele the night before the opening round of the men's golf stroke play tournament at the Tokyo Olympics.

Pop-up thunderstorms have threatened, and will continue to do so through the weekend, the area around the Kasumigaseki Country Club, about 75 minutes northwest of Tokyo. Play has been suspended thrice in the first two rounds due to weather. On Wednesday evening, a storm knocked the power out — and perhaps most consequentially the air conditioning — at Schauffele's hotel, leading to an uncomfortable night.

No such issues existed Thursday night and on Friday, Schauffele rolled to the top of the leaderboard thanks to a furious final five holes (eagle, par, birdie, birdie, birdie) to shoot an 8-under 63. That moved him to 11-under for the tournament, one shot ahead of Mexico's Carlos Ortiz.

He and his father, his coach, watched Olympic table tennis and judo while eating a Japanese dinner.

"AC was on all night," he said after his much-improved second round, which ended minutes before officials suspended play for the day at 5:20 p.m. local time.

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Schauffele didn't feel the need to overthink his weekend rounds while sitting on the 36-hole lead.

"The work is done even before you show up to the tournament. If you’re sitting around after a round trying to think-tank it and figure out what you’re doing wrong," Schauffele said, "you're doing it wrong.

"There’s a very small group of people that have won from too far behind," he added. "If you’re trying to win golf tournaments, you need to be in the hunt."

Entering Saturday's third round, he will be the hunted.

The 27-year-old began rolling on the par-4 sixth, which he drove within eight feet of the 294-yard pin using a 3-wood he tried to hit as high as he could in the air.

"It was nice to capitalize on a good tee shot," he said.

Then lightning forced the field off the course for more than 90 minutes.

Schauffele has recently taken up reading, something those who know him well would laugh at, he said. The material is mostly self-help and mental strategy books. He leaned on those tactics to stay fresh after the delay.