There was little doubt Robert MacIntyre would run his birdie streak to seven.

On the first hole of his second round in the BMW Championship, a day after he finished his round of 62 with six straight birdies, including 117 feet of putts in a three-hole span, the 29-year-old Scotsman left little to chance.

His approach into the downhill par-4 first hole landed within 5 feet for an easy cleanup to put him at 9 under.

Caves Valley Golf Club, with its long layout, slick greens and thick rough, is playing harder than four years ago, the last time the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs was held here. It just hasn’t look that way for MacIntyre.

In the first round, he said, he benefited from a rainstorm that stopped play for over two hours and helped soften the course for the players who came back out with holes left to play. The speed of the greens was easier to discern once play resumed.

“I hadn’t holed any putts, to be honest. I had a few chances,” he said after his round Thursday. “But the greens were really slick early on when they were dry. When I went back out, they felt a little bit slower, a little bit smoother.”

It was back to feeling like a steam bath Friday, and the greens were again “dicey,” MacIntyre said. Twice he had to summon an official, on the par-3 sixth and par-5 16th, because his ball started to move on the green as he went to address his putt.

“The greens are running at about 13 on the Stimp on the flat, so the minute you get on a slope, they’re running about 16, 17, so they’re quick, and the ball will not sit on certain slopes,” he said. “When you mark it and you replace it exactly where you’re meant to, sometimes it’s not in the exact spot that it’s laid in, and then it just won’t set.”

No matter. The lefty followed his scintillating opening round with a bogey-free 64, rarely putting himself in trouble and capably getting out of it when he did.

If the highlight Thursday was MacIntyre’s brilliant work with the flatstick, the story of Friday was pure strike after pure strike with his irons.

When he gave himself good scoring opportunities, he mostly capitalized.

“I feel like this week I’ve really done a good job of getting it underneath the hole to be able to be aggressive with an uphill putt,” MacIntyre said.

On No. 4, the lone par-5 on the front, he found the right rough off the tee. After playing the safe shot back into the fairway on the opposite side of a string of bunkers up the right side, he hit his third to the right edge of the green, 17 feet below the hole. He rolled the right-to-left breaker in for anther birdie to reach 10 under.

He struck another beautiful approach from the right rough on No. 7 to about 7 feet, and he holed the putt, drawing cheers of “Bobby!” and “Bobby Mac!” from the gallery.

On the drivable par-4 11th, he just missed the green from the tee, chipped to about 2 feet and tapped in his fourth birdie of the day.

He kept it rolling by parring the lengthy 12th, one of the few holes he bogeyed in the first round, and coming up with a sand save on the par-3 13th before running up his birdie total to five by draining a 28-foot putt on the 14th.

MacIntyre had a look at eagle on the par-5 16th after rocketing a fairway wood 289 yards to the green. He left his sweeping downhill-then-uphill-then-downhill-again attempt a few feet short and carded his sixth birdie to get to 14 under.

By the evening, MacIntyre was five clear of Scottie Scheffler and six strokes ahead of Ludvig Åberg.

It comes as no surprise that Scheffler, a two-time major winner this year and the FedEx Cup points leader heading into this week, is closest to the lead. He shot 65 on Friday to extend his streak of rounds below 70 to 15.

He had a clean card, too, with three birdies on the front nine and two on the back. But he parred the last six holes, missing a scoring opportunity on the 16th.

“Bogey-free is always nice,” Scheffler said. “I would have liked to get to have gotten a couple better looks down the stretch, but didn’t hit as many fairways the last few holes, and out here, with the way the holes are shaped, you’ve got to be in play, and did a good job of saving pars when I needed to on the back.”

As steady as MacIntyre looked, there were a couple of missed opportunities.

He put his second shot on the short par-4 fifth within 6 feet, only to watch his putt scoot by on the low side.

Another beautiful approach on No. 8 left him with just under 8 feet to the hole. His miss there left him incredulous.

“Wow,” he said to his caddie after his ball slid past. “I thought it was the middle of the hole there.”

He tapped in his par and exclaimed it once more: “Wow.”

Faced with a nasty lie in the rough on the closing 18th, he powered his approach up the hill and 7 feet behind the cup. The putt coming back downhill just slipped past.

“The hardest putts are the ones probably 5, 6, 7, 8 feet down the hill where you’re just breathing on it, touching it to get it going and you just stand there and watch it bob and weave its way down the hill and fearing where it’s going to end,” MacIntyre said.

Not since his amateur days has MacIntyre had a lead this size. But he has every right to feel good about his performance at Caves Valley and the season he’s had in the lead-up to it, finishing second at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at the Open Championship.

“There’s a long way to go,” he said. “I’m comfortable with who I am. I’m comfortable with the team around me, and I’m comfortable on this golf course. Just go and play golf.”

This article has been updated.