A meteoric rise could place Julian Hall on a short list of surprise roster candidates for the U.S. men’s national team ahead of next month’s FIFA World Cup.

Before any roster decisions are made, however, the 18-year-old home-grown forward leads the host New York Red Bulls against rival New York City FC on Saturday.

Hall became the youngest player in MLS history to notch a regular-season hat trick as he powered the Red Bulls (5-5-3, 18 points) to a 3-2 home win over the Columbus Crew on Wednesday.

“Jules is a great kid,” Red Bulls coach Michael Bradley said. “… He comes in every day ready to work, ready to train, ready to listen. He has a great personality. He has really good starting points as a player. And I’ve enjoyed every second of working with him.”

In 13 matches, Hall leads the Red Bulls with nine goals and also has two assists. He’s tied for fourth in the MLS Golden Boot standings.

Hall isn’t hiding from the dream of playing in a World Cup, but said he remains focused on the Red Bulls’ last two matches before an extended international-competition break.

“Whatever happens, happens, my focus is with the club,” Hall said. “But obviously, it’s a dream of anyone that plays, to play in the World Cup. I hope someday that happens, but if it’s not this year, then I’m going to keep working hard and striving for that goal.”

NYCFC (5-5-3, 18 points) picked up a 1-0 win at Charlotte FC on Wednesday behind a Nicolas Fernandez goal in the eighth minute on a Hannes Wolf assist.

Fernandez leads NYCFC with nine goals and three assists and Wolf has five goals and two assists.

With back-to-back clean sheets, including a 3-0 home shutout of Columbus on Sunday, Pascal Jansen’s club is hitting its stride with two league matches before a pause for the World Cup.

“It’s a big compliment to everybody on the pitch because they worked really hard and showed the character needed to get these games over the line,” Jansen said. “Hopefully we can continue this in the third block of games.”

The rivals played in the U.S. Open Cup on April 29, with NYCFC coming away with a 3-1 victory. They have won three straight and four of five overall contests in the series.

–Field Level Media

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Dustin Johnson is content to compete in the PGA Championship this weekend — and that’s about as far as he’s willing to look ahead.

When asked where he will be in 2027 in the wake of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund’s announcement that it will no longer back LIV Golf beyond this year, Johnson didn’t have much of an answer.

“I think Scott’s doing a good job,” Johnson said of LIV CEO Scott O’Neil. “I think your guess is as good as mine with what happens next year.”

In January, LIV Golf announced a multi-year extension with Johnson, the 4Aces GC captain and two-time major champion.

A 24-time winner on the PGA Tour, Johnson was one of the first players to defect for LIV Golf and became the Saudi-backed circuit’s first season champion in 2022. Johnson, 41, won the U.S. Open in 2016 and the Masters in 2020.

Johnson carded an even-par 70 on Friday that included three birdies against three bogeys. That followed an opening-round 72 to place him at 2-over-par 142 for the tournament.

“I’m happy with my game, honestly,” Johnson told reporters. “Not very thrilled with my driver. Everything else feels really good. I’m rolling it well, short game is good and obviously it’s difficult around these greens. It’s hard to judge the last few shots I hit, seemed really nice and that I hit better shots than where they ended up.

“But it’s just tough. Everybody’s dealing with it. The wind will be blowing and then all of a sudden all the way down a little bit, and that’s the difference 10 or 15 yards out here and that’s a big deal.”

–Field Level Media

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley and Cameron Young were put on the clock early in their second round at the PGA Championship, and they didn’t understand why they were singled out.

They were far from the only ones whose round was dragging. As Thomas argued, they weren’t holding up the group behind them — they were the ones being held up. The broadcast captured Thomas and Bradley pointing to the group ahead of them on the fourth hole at Aronimink Golf Club.

“The hard part to me with the whole pace of play thing is that you, there’s so much that goes into golf and there’s so much that goes into hole to hole,” Thomas said. “… Are you hitting it close? Are you able to tap it in, or you have to mark it? Stuff like that — are you holding the group up or are you not — to where it’s very hard to make that call. And we just didn’t agree with it, to be honest.”

We’ve all been there Justin Thomas.

Starter telling us to pick up the pace of play….meanwhile the group ahead of us is taking too long ?? pic.twitter.com/BAasmwW44j

— Ryan Sampson (@RyanMSampson) May 15, 2026

Thomas and his group hustled on the ensuing hole, and officials took them off the clock. Multiple slow shots while a player is “on the clock” can result in a one-stroke penalty, but Thomas said he didn’t feel rushed.

“I backed off on my first shot being on the clock, even,” Thomas said. “It’s just, it’s so hard out here, and that’s the last thing I’m going to do is make a mistake because I feel like I’m rushing.

“If we were, for some reason, to get in a position where I was getting, we were getting bad times and we were continuing to be on, I would have had more discussions with the rules officials to kind of plead my case.”

For the second straight day at this major championship, rounds frequently exceeded five hours and sometimes hit 5 1/2. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Englishmen Justin Rose and Matt Fitzpatrick went out as a threesome at about 8:40 a.m. local time. They were wrapping up just after 2:10 p.m.

Scheffler and some of his peers pointed to the difficulty of the PGA of America’s pin locations as one factor slowing down play.

“You just got to continue to try to hit good shots, and most of the pins today were, I mean, kind of absurd,” Scheffler said after a 1-over 71 put him at 2 under for the championship.

“They were just so far into the areas where we thought the pins were going to be, and then they just — like the one on 14 was probably the hardest pin that I’ve seen in a long time just because, I mean, there’s literally just like a spine (in the green) and they’re like, ‘Oh, we’ll just put the pin right on top of it.’ And you’re like, ‘All right, well, I’ll see what I can do.'”

Chris Gotterup had similar feelings even after carding a 5-under 65.

“I don’t think it’s unfair, but I do think for pace of play and certain aspects, there have been a couple — you know, 14 today is probably aggressive, I will say,” Gotterup said. “You’re hitting a 4-iron to a 10-foot circle, and if it doesn’t go there, it’s off the green, and if you hit it 40 feet left, you have a very hard 2-putt.”

The issue also seems to include a logistical element. With 156 total players starting off the first and 10th tees — which share a tee box — some threesomes run into each other. Players leaving the eighth hole must cross through No. 11’s tee complex to get to the ninth tee.

“Back nine requires a little bit more quality, and pace of play was incredibly slow on the back,” Denmark’s Nicolai Hojgaard said Thursday. “We were two groups (waiting at a time) on a couple tee boxes. It was hard to get into a rhythm. Where, on the front nine, we were on the fly.”

The pace of play frequently crops up at majors with large fields, and it’s likely to be eased Saturday and Sunday following Friday’s 36-hole cut to the top 70 and ties.

–Adam Zielonka, Field Level Media