AUGUSTA, Ga. — This one is for you, golf fans. The ones who are annoyed over golf’s divide. The ones who can’t stand the bickering. The ones who just want to watch the best players play the same tournaments more often.
This 89th Masters is for you, because through 36 holes it’s a doozy. In fact, it’s so good, Rory McIlroy was asked what he thought when he spotted the names on it.
“I was just looking for my name,” he said. “I was not really worried about the others.”
Touche. Regardless, this leaderboard is good, people — and you deserve it. If the best players in the world are only going to get together four times a year, we better get leaderboards like this, especially if they are at the biggest tournament of the year on the most famous golf course in the world.
Let’s break it down: Affable European Justin Rose leads at eight under, content creator/U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau is one back, fan favorite McIlroy and candidate for best player without a major Corey Conners are two back. Four players are just three off the lead — and that includes defending champ Scottie Scheffler, Open champion Shane Lowry and the fiery (and entertaining) Tyrrell Hatton.
A good ‘board, right?
“We’ve got some great guys on top of the leaderboard,” Scheffler said, “so it should be a fun weekend.”
Well said, Scottie!
Rose went so low on Thursday (65) he didn’t need to shoot better than 71 Friday to keep his lead. At eight under he’s the man out in front, hitting 14 greens in a low-stress second round. He’s won a U.S. Open and an Olympic gold medal and played in six Ryder Cups, but he’s never finished better than second here, when he lost in a playoff to Sergio Garcia in 2017.
He’s now the one being chased. And the list of hunters is captivating.
DeChambeau, the entertaining, quirky, odd-ball, uber-talented two-time major champ will join Rose in the final pairing Saturday after shooting rounds of 69-68. He’s hit hundreds more golf balls than anyone else has on the range this week. On Friday he was asked about a uppercut punch move he was making on the range. He says it’s kind of like a Ping-Pong swing thought where you’d try to create topspin. He later added he cycles through a hundred(!) different swing thoughts a week, 15 or 20 alone per range session.
“I’ve got a lot going on up in there,” he said, smiling. “You wouldn’t want to be in there.”
Then there’s McIlroy. He made two late doubles on Thursday but rebounded Friday to vault up the leaderboard, playing the first six holes of the second nine in five under (with an eagle on 13) to shoot 66. He didn’t make a bogey and was in a good headspace post-round Friday.
“I think overall just proud of myself with how I responded today after the finish last night,” he said. “I just had to remind myself that I played really good golf yesterday, and you know, I wasn’t going to let two bad holes sort of dictate the narrative for the rest of the week. But yeah, ultimately, just proud of how I got back into it today.”
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McIlroy might always be the biggest storyline here, at long as he continues to be one of the world’s best golfers and chases the career grand slam, which he only needs a Masters win to complete.
Scheffler, the World No. 1 and two-time winner here is three back despite not having his best stuff so far. Still, he’s in prime position to win three green jackets before he even turns 29.
The list of contenders continues. Viktor Hovland and Jason Day are four under, four off the lead. Five shots back — and still very much in this thing — is Ludvig Aberg, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Reed and Collin Morikawa. Heck, even Xander Schauffele, winner of two majors last season, is two under, six off the lead, but with 36 holes to make up ground.
This year’s Masters may not have Tiger Woods, but it has PGA Tour and LIV stars contending for a green jacket.
The two sides might not be able to agree on much, but we can all come to the same conclusion here: this is about to get good.
“It’s only half way, we got 36 holes to go on a really hard golf course,” McIlroy said. “Anything could happen.”
And it might only get better. Cheers, golf fans.
