Straka takes the lead as the weather takes a turn for the worse on day two of the Pro-Am.

On Friday afternoon, the mood on the courses of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am turned. As a storm front moved in, strings of birdies carded through the morning turned into battles for par.

“[It] went from zero to about 20 miles an hour pretty quickly,” Sepp Straka observes. “Definitely happy I don’t have to play any more holes out there.”

Straka took advantage of the still morning at Pebble Beach Golf Links to shave 5 strokes on the front nine and two more before the weather turned. Despite a bogey on 16, he fought conditions to birdie 18, to top the leaderboard at 14-under for the tournament after a 7-under round of 65 on Friday.

He sits 3 strokes ahead of Russell Henley, the round 1 leader and Cam Davis. The two ended the day in a tie for second at 11-under, Henley playing a 3-under 69 at Pebble Beach while Davis carded a 4-under 68 on Spyglass Hill Golf Course.

Davis was perhaps fortunate. He started on the exposed front nine under calmer conditions and finished on the back nine, gaining some protection from the trees. He might have moved into solo second place on the day. He was on the fringe of the green in two on the par-4 18th. But Davis’ par putt slipped past the cup on the left edge, forcing him to settle for a bogey.

Meanwhile Henley hovered at or near the top of the board throughout the day, but as winds kicked up, he endured a wild back nine—three birdies and two bogeys.

“I felt like it was just kind of turned into a little bit of a bear,” he says. “So I was really happy to finish with a par on 9.”

The effect of the weather can be told by the scorecards. Over the first 12 holes, those finishing in the top 20 recorded 48 holes below par. They finished out with only 23.

“Yeah, those last four, five holes played a little different,” Straka points out. “Especially playing into the wind—16, 17 was pretty tough.”

Even his birdie on 18 had some drama. Sitting 208 yards from the pin, the skies began to drip. He decided to play a 4-iron into the wind for his second shot.

“I just started it middle of the green and it just drifted towards the right of the green,” he says. “Once you pick up a little bit of wind, it’s harder to hit fairways, and the greens obviously play a lot smaller.”

Tom Kim, Andrew Novak and Tony Finau charged up the leaderboard to wind up round 2 in a fourth place tie, alongside Justin Rose and Austin Eckroat at 10-under overall. Kim and Novak fired 7-under rounds, the former at Pebble Beach and the latter on Spyglass Hill.

Finau also played Spyglass, gaining 6 strokes in his first 10 holes. But as the weather struck, working the ocean-side holes, Finau dropped a stroke.

Novak won the team competition with amateur partner Philippe Laffont, founder of Coatue Management and a member of Cypress Point.

Now the amateurs clear the field, leaving 80 professionals to battle for the $3.6 million winner’s share. Saturday’s round will begin with 12 players within 5 strokes of the lead.

However, rain is expected to pick up during the day.

“It's unfortunate because Pebble is pure right now,” Finau says. “We'll have to adjust, just adapt as we do out here.”