Key events
The Par 3 Contest winner Aaron Rai starts his second round calmly and confidently. Tea Olive found in regulation, and a long birdie putt that shaves the hole. He remains at -1 after yesterday’s 71, a round that promised more after going out in 33. Meanwhile Wyndham Clark’s run of consecutive birdies comes to an end at 5. Just a par, though he’s now landed his tee shot at 6 into the heart of the green, using the slope to bring his ball towards the flag tucked away front left. He’ll have a good look at birdie from 18 feet, a putt not exactly flat and straight, but as flat and straight as they come around here.
At the risk of belabouring the point, here’s a bit more on how difficult Augusta National is playing this week. As mentioned earlier, yesterday’s scoring average was 74.65, just over two-and-a-half shots over par. That’s the highest first-day average since 2017 (74.98) although we did get more sub-70 rounds yesterday than we did on Thursday nine years ago: five to two. Though how much attention our defending champion and co-leader Rory McIlroy will pay to all this is moot: he shot 72 in the first round in 2017, but 67 yesterday. Golf is almost as difficult to analyse as it is to play.
Clark is the only player out this morning under par for his round so far. A small sample size, but one that nevertheless suggests low scores will come at a premium today. To illustrate: Tom McKibbin, whose Masters debut isn’t going to plan. The 23-year-old from Belfast shot 75 yesterday, and he’s opened this morning with three bogeys and a double in his first five holes. He’s clattered down the standings to +8, and isn’t the only player from the LIV tour to be struggling this week: none of the tour’s ten representatives broke par yesterday, with their big guns Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm shooting 76 and 78 respectively, two of the pre-Tournament favourites as good as out of the running already.
It’s three birdies in a row for 2023 US Open champion Wyndham Clark! On a roll, he cracks his tee shot at the long par-three 4th pin high, to eight feet, and walks in the putt. The late-blooming 32-year-old from Denver tied for fourth at last year’s Open, so he’s trending in the majors, albeit with a nine-month hiatus, but he’s not got a good record at Augusta National: one missed cut and a tie for 46th. Looks like he’s in the mood to right that particular wrong.
-5: Burns, McIlroy
-3: Clark (4), Kitayama, Day, Reed
-2: Rose, Scheffler, Lowry, Schauffele
It promises to be a glorious day at Augusta National. Sunny and dry, with temperatures set to reach 80 degrees by the afternoon. Not too much in the way of wind. It’ll be more of the same during the weekend, so expect conditions to get tougher and tougher as the course gets harder and faster. Given that yesterday’s scoring average was 74.65, already up nearly two strokes from last year’s average of 72.81, we could be in for plenty of high jinks on Sunday afternoon. Cannot wait.
The first adjustment towards the top of today’s Leader Board comes courtesy of the 2023 US Open champion Wyndham Clark. He birdies 2, wedging over the bunker guarding the right of the green to a couple of feet and tidying up. He follows that up by finding the dancefloor of the elevated green at 3 in regulation, then steering in the right-to-left 12-footer that remains. A birdie-birdie blast, and Clark moves confidently into red figures.
-5: Burns, McIlroy
-3: Kitayama, Day, Reed
-2: Clark (3), Rose, Scheffler, Lowry, Schauffele
-1: Rai, Bridgeman, Woodland, Li, Taylor, Fleetwood
… also, before we head out onto the course, it’s probably best if we grab ourselves a snack. How about one of these new dark-milk chocolate bars with caramel and rice crispies? CANDY BAR: the only Soviet-branded candy with a hazelnut crunch! Horseshoe theory enthusiasts will be delighted to see the late-stage capitalism of the USA swinging all the way around towards a socialist idyll. Just $2.25. Sounds delicious, get me two.
While we wait for the meaningful action to begin, let’s whack on a tune. Now then, “CBS” + “music” = Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen. It also equals this. All together now (for it has lyrics) …
Well it’s springtime in the valley on Magnolia Lane
It’s the Augusta National and the master of the game
Who’ll wear that green coat on Sunday afternoon?
Who’ll walk the 18th fairway singing this tune?
Augusta, your dogwoods and pines
They play on my mind like a song
Augusta, it’s you that I love
And it’s you that I’ll miss when I’m gone.
It’s Watson, Byron Nelson, Demaret, Player and Snead
It’s Amen Corner and it’s Hogan’s perfect swing
It’s Sarazen’s double eagle at the 15 in ‘35
And the spirit of Clifford Roberts that keeps it alive
Augusta, your dogwoods and pines
They play on my mind like a song
Augusta, it’s you that I love
And it’s you that I miss when I’m gone
It’s the legions of Arnie’s Army and the Golden Bear’s throngs
And the wooden-shafted legend of Bobby Jones.
Preamble
“What are we all going to talk about next year?” Yes, well, Rory’s keeping his riff alive, isn’t he? It’s a good while today until the defending champ turns up for work, mind you, so in the meantime, here’s how the top of the leaderboard looked after 18 holes …
-5: Burns, McIlroy
-3: Kitayama, Day, Reed
-2: Lowry, Schauffele, Rose, Scheffler
-1: Li, Taylor, Fleetwood, Campbell, Rai, Bridgeman, Woodland
… and here’s the Friday running order. Some pre-Tournament favourites in Ludvig Åberg (+2), Bryson DeChambeau (+4) and Jon Rahm (+6) need to get their gamefaces on and quick.
Today’s tee times (USA unless stated, all times BST)
1240 Sung-Jae Im (Kor), Sam Stevens
1250 Brian Campbell, Tom McKibbin (NIrl), Andrew Novak
1302 Wyndham Clark, (a) Mateo Pulcini (Arg), Mike Weir (Can)
1314 Nicolai Hoejgaard (Den), Zach Johnson, Michael Kim
1326 (a) Ethan Fang, Davis Riley, Danny Willett (Eng)
1338 Daniel Berger, Brian Harman, Adam Scott (Aus)
1350 Fred Couples, (a) Pongsapak Laopakdee (Tha), Min-Woo Lee (Aus)
1402 Jacob Bridgeman, Sergio Garcia (Spa), Aaron Rai (Eng)
1419 Michael Brennan, Corey Conners (Can), Harry Hall (Eng)
1431 Tyrrell Hatton (Eng), Maverick McNealy, JJ Spaun
1443 Ludvig Aberg (Swe), Chris Gotterup, Jon Rahm (Spa)
1455 Brooks Koepka, Justin Rose (Eng), Jordan Spieth
1507 Ben Griffin, Sepp Straka (Aut), Justin Thomas
1519 Robert MacIntyre (Sco), Scottie Scheffler, Gary Woodland
1531 Harris English, Si-Woo Kim (Kor), Marco Penge (Eng)
1551 Johnny Keefer, Haotong Li (Chn)
1603 Max Homa, Naoyuki Kataoka (Jpn), Carlos Ortiz (Mex)
1615 Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (Den), Jose Maria Olazabal (Spa), Aldrich Potgieter (Rsa)
1627 Angel Cabrera (Arg), (a) Jackson Herrington, Sami Valimaki (Fin)
1639 Ryan Fox (Nzl), Max Greyserman, Charl Schwartzel (Rsa)
1651 Rasmus Hoejgaard (Den), Matt McCarty, Vijay Singh (Fij)
1703 Casey Jarvis (Rsa), Kurt Kitayama, Kristoffer Reitan (Nor)
1715 Nicolas Echavarria (Col), (a) Brandon Holtz, Bubba Watson
1732 Sam Burns, Jake Knapp, Cameron Smith (Aus)
1744 Keegan Bradley, Ryan Gerard, Nick Taylor (Can)
1756 Jason Day (Aus), Dustin Johnson, Shane Lowry (Irl)
1808 Akshay Bhatia, Tommy Fleetwood (Eng), Patrick Reed
1820 Bryson DeChambeau, Matthew Fitzpatrick (Eng), Xander Schauffele
1832 Russell Henley, Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn), Collin Morikawa
1844 (a) Mason Howell, Rory McIlroy (NIrl), Cameron Young
1856 Patrick Cantlay, Viktor Hovland (Nor), Alexander Noren (Swe)
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/apr/10/the-masters-2026-day-two-golf-updates-from-augusta-national-live
About the Author
