Spieth’s one-over par 73 for three-under 213 easily bettered playing partner McIlroy, who struggled to a five-over 77 without a birdie on his card for the first time in 80 rounds at majors. If Langer were to win a third green jacket, the 58-year-old would become the oldest major victor in golfing history.
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AUGUSTA, Georgia Jordan Spieth remained anchored at the top of the Masters leaderboard while Rory McIlroy was laboring in gusting winds as the marquee pair reached the third round turn at blustery Augusta National on Saturday.
At one point early in the second round, McIlroy was eight behind runaway leader Spieth, but the latter steadily dropped shots after a hot start to drop back to four-under, just one ahead of McIlroy.
Spieth still had a chance when he birdied both par 5s to get within two shots with three to play.
Spieth also made double bogey at No. 11, but was able to recover.
“If they start coming back, then that’s when you’ve got to go, ‘OK, I need to kind of show a little bit more patience.’ Even though I’m going to have scoring opportunities”.
The low round of the day was American Smylie Kaufman’s 69, and only four other players – Langer (70), Jason Day, Lee Westwood and Louis Oosthuizen (71) broke par. “But if you’d told me that I’d have the 54-hole lead, I’d obviously be very pleased”.
“I played better than I scored”, Spieth insisted afterward.
The 24-year-old rookie also mentioned he’s received some flack from other tour pros because of his current living situation.
McIlroy, 26, suffered his first setback on the third hole, nearly finding a 20-footer for par only for it to come up short for his first bogey of the day, falling three shots behind the defending champion. Johnson 3-putted the final hole from 12 feet, handing Spieth the victory.
A birdie on the eighth looked to have steadied the ship, but Spieth then bogeyed the ninth and 10th and was visibly – and audibly – annoyed at being timed for slow play as he wanted to wait for the wind to die down on his approach to the 11th.
That Langer is conjures memories of what happened 30 years ago when Jack Nicklaus won the Masters at age 46.
“I just have to absolutely throw it away, the finish to this round, pretend it’s a new round, everyone is tied and you have to shoot the best score to win”. “And I’m trying my best to survive right now”.
“There is nearly no way to avoid it. I thought I putted the ball unbelievably today”.
“I’ve got nothing to lose”, McIlroy said. Last year, Spieth’s winning score was 18-under par.
If Langer can win his third green jacket, he will be the oldest major champion by 10 years, beating Julius Boros’ 48 years when he won the 1968 PGA. “I probably would have taken three pars to finish and I would have been happy”, he said. He again found the trees off the 11th tee, and a bad situation got worse when a poor punch-out off the pine needles found the water, which led to a double bogey six.
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SHOT(S) OF THE DAY: Day made a 70-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole.
