The Quick Answer
As of roughly 9:45 a.m. ET (8:45 a.m. CT) Friday, August 14, Kalshi's FedEx St Jude round 2 leader market (ticker KXPGAR2LEAD-FESJC26) has one clear front-runner: Sungjae Im, trading 21 cents bid and 22 cents ask, about a 22% chance to lead after 36 holes. That is more than double the next name on the board, Michael Thorbjornsen at 10 cents, and it is a striking shape given Im started Friday one shot behind the five men who shared the first round lead. Round 2 is live at TPC Southwind and this board will move all afternoon. The full board, the tie rule that quietly caps every winning ticket at less than a dollar, and why this market looks nothing like yesterday's dead-flat first round board are all below.
Sungjae Im Broke From The Pack Early
Thursday ended with a five-way logjam at 5-under 65: Jordan Spieth, Jake Knapp, Michael Thorbjornsen, Michael Kim and Kurt Kitayama. Sungjae Im was not in it. He opened 4-under 66, seven birdies against three bogeys with more than two and a half strokes gained putting, and sat one shot back of the leaders. One shot back is a rounding error on a 69-man playoff board, but it is why his round 2 leader price started the morning near a coin flip of the field's second tier rather than out front.
Then the early wave teed off Friday and Im kept making birdies. By mid-morning he had pushed his tournament total clear of the group he was chasing and taken the outright lead among everyone on the course, which is exactly when the market moved: his ask climbed from 20 cents at 8:40 a.m. ET to 22 cents an hour later while the rest of the board barely twitched. The crowd is not pricing a hunch here. It is pricing a leaderboard that already tilted his way before most of the field had a club in hand.
Here is the top of the board, the eight names the market prices at 6 cents or better, pulled straight from Kalshi's live market data at the timestamp above (a Yes contract pays out if that golfer, alone or tied, leads the tournament at the end of Round 2; every other name in the 69-man field trades at 4 cents or less):
| Golfer | Yes Bid | Yes Ask | Implied Chance to Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sungjae Im | 21¢ | 22¢ | ~22% |
| Michael Thorbjornsen | 9¢ | 10¢ | ~10% |
| Kurt Kitayama | 7¢ | 8¢ | ~8% |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 6¢ | 7¢ | ~7% |
| Jake Knapp | 6¢ | 7¢ | ~7% |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 6¢ | 7¢ | ~7% |
| Jordan Spieth | 6¢ | 7¢ | ~7% |
| Michael Kim | 5¢ | 6¢ | ~6% |
The rows I keep coming back to are the four bunched together at 7 cents: Tommy Fleetwood, Jake Knapp, Hideki Matsuyama and Jordan Spieth. Two of them, Knapp and Spieth, shared Thursday's lead at 5-under, and neither can crack a dime this morning, because Im has stepped in front of them and there is only one round left to run him down. Overnight position, the market is saying, is already worth less than who is scoring right now.
Drop to the bottom of the priced names and the most telling number is not in that top tier at all. Scottie Scheffler, the world No. 1 and the runaway favorite on the tournament winner board, trades at just 3 cents to lead after 36 holes. He opened even-par 70, which leaves him five shots behind Thursday's 5-under group, so he would have to pass most of the field in a single round to top a one-number market. The gap between "best golfer" and "most likely leader" is the entire personality of a round-leader bet, and it is worth holding onto before you talk yourself into a name.
Why This Board Is Top-Heavy When Yesterday's Was Flat
If you read our first round leader page from Thursday, this board should look upside down. That one was the flattest of playoff week: the ten priciest asks stacked together barely cleared 35%, and the crowd was effectively saying one round of golf is a coin cascade where almost anyone can catch fire. It settled in a five-way tie to prove the point.
Twenty four hours later the round 2 leader board is the opposite animal. Im alone is at 22%, and the ten most expensive names now sum to roughly 82% of the probability rather than 35%. The reason is timing, not opinion. A first round leader market prices a blank slate, so it fans the money out across the whole field. A second round leader market gets priced while Round 2 is already partly played and one man has separated, so real information has replaced guesswork and the board concentrates behind the golfer who is actually in front. Same tournament, same exchange, a board that reshaped itself overnight because the question quietly changed from "who might get hot" to "who is hot right now." If you want the mechanics of why a 22-cent price is really a ~22% read, here is what a Kalshi price actually means.
One number keeps the board honest, though: add up every Yes ask across all 69 names and you get about 154 cents, not 100. That overround is the exchange's spread, the built-in cushion between what buyers pay and what sellers receive, and it is why the bid side of the same board sums closer to 84 cents. Whichever golfer you fancy, you are paying the ask and the ask is padded. The same devig math we walk through for Kalshi strips that padding out so you can see the true implied number under the price.
The Tie Rule Still Sets The Ceiling
Im leading now does not mean the market is over, and it does not mean a Yes ticket is worth a full dollar even if he holds on. Kalshi's rules for this event are explicit: if one golfer leads outright at the end of Round 2, his Yes contracts pay $1, but if multiple players tie for the lead, Yes pays $1 divided by N, rounded down to the nearest cent, where N is the number of players tied. A two-way tie pays 50 cents, a three-way pays 33, a five-way pays 20. Thursday's first round market landed on that five-way case and turned every winning ticket into 20 cents on the dollar, so this is not a theoretical footnote. It happened at this exact venue yesterday.
The tie risk is live for a specific reason today. Most of the five golfers who shared Thursday's lead, including Thorbjornsen, Spieth and Kitayama, do not tee off until later in the day, and they begin Round 2 at 5-under, the number Im spent the morning chasing before he birdied past it. If a couple of them get hot and finish level with him, Im's "winning" Yes contract still only pays a fraction of a dollar. Call it the tax hiding under his 22-cent price, the reason the crowd stops him at 22% instead of pushing him toward the 40s even while he leads.
The one rule to remember: a tied leader does not pay $1. Im can lead outright tonight and still hand back a chunk of the dollar if even one afternoon golfer catches him at the number, which is the exact outcome that turned Thursday's first round market into 20-cent tickets.
Worked Example: What A Winning Im Ticket Actually Pays
Say you buy 100 Yes contracts on Sungjae Im at 22 cents, about $22 for the lot, plus Kalshi's standard golf-market trading fee of 0.07 x price x (1 − price) per contract, which on a 22-cent price is roughly a penny per contract.
- Im Leads Outright After 36 Holes: contracts pay $1 each. You collect $100 on a $22 stake.
- Im Is One Of Two Tied Leaders: contracts pay 50 cents. You collect $50.
- Im Is One Of Three Tied Leaders: contracts pay 33 cents. You collect $33.
- Im Slips Behind And Does Not Lead: contracts pay $0.
The binary miss is the obvious risk. The tie is the quieter one, and on a bunched leaderboard at a par 70 where five men already shared the number once this week, the tie is closer to the base case than the exception. Buying a mid-round "leader" at 50 or 60 cents while three players share the number means buying a contract whose realistic ceiling might be 33 cents, not $1.
Where The Money Goes From Here
There are three live boards on this one tournament, and they are asking three different questions, so never treat them as interchangeable. The round 2 leader market you are reading about closes tonight when the round finishes. The FedEx St Jude Championship winner board stays open through Sunday and is where conviction about the best golfer in Memphis belongs, which is why Scheffler trades like a genuine contender there and a 3% afterthought here. And the top-20 finish market prices safe, consistent ball-strikers rather than one hot round. Im leading Round 2 nudges all three, but it moves the leader board hardest because that is the only one his single fast round actually decides.
The habit that carries across every one of them is the one this page keeps circling: a 22-cent Im on the leader board and a 3-cent Scheffler on the same board are two different bets on the same golfers, and the price you pay decides which one is worth it once you factor in the tie tax. Golf outrights and matchups move the same way from book to book, so never pay the first number you see. You can compare live golf odds across every major book on the OddsShopper odds screen, and the free expert picks today hub shows what our analysts are actually playing for the rest of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
One habit before you trade any of it: know your venue. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, and where it is legal differs from sportsbooks, part of why golf props price differently across the two. The Kalshi vs DraftKings comparison walks through that gap so you know which side you are actually on before the round ends.
OddsShopper Pro adds the full odds screen, +EV tools and every expert pick for playoff season, and code R2LEADER20 takes 20% off your first payment.
FAQ
Who is favored to lead the FedEx St Jude Championship after Round 2? As of late Friday morning, Sungjae Im tops Kalshi's round 2 leader market near 22 cents, about a 22% implied chance, after opening 4-under 66 and adding birdies early in Round 2 to take the outright lead. Michael Thorbjornsen is next at about 10 cents.
Why is Im favored when he did not lead after Round 1? He started Friday one shot back of the five-way tie at 5-under, then kept scoring in the early wave and pulled ahead on the course. The board reprices to the live leaderboard, so a golfer who separates during Round 2 moves to the front of the round 2 leader market even if he trailed after Thursday.
What happens to my contract if players tie for the lead? Yes pays $1 divided by the number tied, rounded down to the nearest cent. Two tied leaders pay 50 cents each, three pay 33, five pay 20. Every golfer who does not lead settles at $0.
Is Scottie Scheffler worth backing to lead after Round 2? The market says barely, pricing him near 3 cents. His even-par 70 left him five back of the 5-under group, and he would need to jump most of the leaderboard in a single round to top a one-number market, which is why his round-leader price sits far below his tournament-winner price.
When does this market settle? When Round 2 finishes Friday evening. The tournament winner board and the top-20 market stay open through the weekend.
The Round That Reshaped The Board
So watch the clock as closely as the leaderboard. The names that can take this market away from Sungjae Im are the ones who have not started yet: most of Thursday's 5-under group tees off later in the day, and every birdie they make is a live threat either to pass Im outright or to pull level and trigger the tie rule that turned yesterday's winners into 20-cent tickets. His 22-cent price is not a coronation, it is the exchange pricing a front-runner who still has to survive a full afternoon of fresh scorecards. If the chasers cool off, Im holds and a Yes ticket pays out; if two of them catch him, the tie tax bites; if a name from the pack goes low, the whole board tilts again by dinner. A round-leader market caught mid-round settles only on the back nine, and until then the price is just Kalshi keeping honest score of a race that is still being run.
Round 2 of the 2026 FedEx St Jude Championship is in progress at TPC Southwind. All prices above were pulled from Kalshi's live market data as of roughly 9:45 a.m. ET (8:45 a.m. CT) on Friday, August 14, 2026, and prediction market prices move constantly during a live round. Check the live board before trading. Prediction markets are not predictions of fact and not financial advice.
