Australian Cameron Davis is still pushing for his first major tour win but he had to deal with some sensational scoring -- including a 59 -- at the US PGA Tour's Northern Trust event in Boston today.

Davis, 25, is tied-second after a second-round 65 at TPC Boston, continuing his sensational run in a groundbreaking year.

The man from Monash Country Club in Sydney now has a sequence of scores since the second round of last week's Wyndham Championship that reads: 65-65-65-64-65.

Any wonder the 2017 Australian Open champion is surging toward the end of the PGA Tour season.

But not even that kind of scoring could find all the headlines. American Scottie Scheffler became the 11th player in PGA Tour history to break 60 today, while former world No. 1 Dustin Johnson shot 60 and had several great chances to smash the barrier, too.

By day's end it was Johnson at 15-under par who held the lead by two shots from Davis and Scheffler in a tie for second at 13-under.

Johnson was 11-under par through 11 holes today, meaning he needed to pick up just one more shot to break 60. But he burned the hole with several putts down the stretch, including the 17th (from three metres) and the 18th (from six metres) and had to be content with his 11-under par 60.

Today Davis started out with a share of the lead at seven-under and immediately rolled in birdie putts at the first three holes. A three-putt bogey at the sixth slowed his progress, but he immediately birdied the seventh and eighth and turned in 32. Further birdies at the 10th and the par-five 18th from short range left him right in the mix.

Afterward, he was happy that the mental and physical sides of his game were working. "I've been working hard on both and it's nice to see both coming together," said Davis.

"Through the quarantine, there was not much golf at all. Took a little while to get going again. A little bit of work on both is nice to see it kind of coming together to the point where I can play 18 holes of good quality stuff."

Davis began the playoffs series of three tournaments in 91st place but he is projected to jump into the top 20 if he can maintain his position over the weekend.

The top 70 go through to the BMW Championship in Chicago next week but that will not be a problem for Davis now, even though it is just his first appearance in the US Tour playoffs. Davis said he knew that to win, he would need to bring his best against this quality of field. "They're all here for a reason. They've had a good season. I'm sure they have the game to take it low. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It'll be good fun."

“(Today's round) was the same sort of deal (as yesterday). Same distances from the pin that I'm aiming, same looks for putts and same clubs off the tees.

"I just feel like my game plan around here doesn't need to change very much. So far through two rounds, it's been really good. I just need to do two more of those and should be good.”

Scott (66-70) and Cameron Smith (69-68) also are having a good week in Boston and will get through at least to Chicago. Matt Jones also made the cut to give himself a chance of advancing, and while Marc Leishman and Jason Day missed the cut, they were guaranteed of getting to Chicago already.

Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy (three under) squeezed inside the cut-line today but recent major winner, Collin Morikawa, was among those who missed out.

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