“I was trying to get it going on the back”.
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Spieth, Paul Casey and Bryson DeChambeau were told on the 11th hole, the toughest in the second round, that they were being timed for being out of position.
“I want to win this golf tournament and I want to finish on the lowest score possible, and whoever that is ahead of me at that point, I just want to finish one better than that”.
Among the lingering recollections from those two rounds was a six-putt on No. 10 that had playing partners Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman laughing.
But he had bogeys on his next two holes and reeled off four straight pars before a birdie at 15 to get back to 7-under. The scoring average was 75.02, also the highest in nine years. I am still in a decent spot for the weekend depending on what the leaders do. It’s only the second day, there’s still two days to go, but it’s a great round and it’s nice to be up there near the lead going into the weekend here instead of on the cut line and having to battle back where I found myself the last couple years.
McIlroy had been within two of the lead on Thursday before bogeys on the 16th and 18th and it was a case of deja vu for the world number three on Friday, who needs to win a green jacket to complete the career grand slam.
Though the Masters has the most generous cut among the four major championships, plenty of familiar names failed to make the weekend at Augusta National. “And I had two balls in the water on 12 and 13 (so) two-over is not a bad score”.
Spieth said it would be exciting to play with McIlroy and left it at that.
“I mean, there’s the potential tomorrow for someone to shoot a few under and move up into the lead from outside the top 25”, the tournament leader added.
Not that we don’t enjoy the Texas force of nature, mind you.
“If I can find it with the swing a bit I think I’ve got a bit of momentum happening on the course”. Brandt Snedeker, Soren Kjeldsen and Hideki Matsuyama are tied for fifth at 143.
Dustin Johnson birdied all the par 5s for a 71 and was in the group at even par that included DeChambeau, the U.S. Amateur champion who felt the sting of Augusta on the final hole.
He came home in 8-over 80 and followed that with a second-round 73 that included, ugh, a missed five-footer for par on No. 1. “I don’t like the left-to-right wind on that hole”.
A shock blunder from Jordan Spieth gave the chasing pack hope after the defending champion had threatened to turn the Masters into a procession for the second year in a row. Coming off his wire-to-wire victory a year ago, that par save on the 18th allowed him to set a record for consecutive rounds in the lead.
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But he ran into trouble off the tee – hitting one drive out of bounds and another into an unplayable lie and wound up making triple-bogey seven – dropping back into a tie for eighth.
