Justin Rose is headed into the weekend with a one-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau. This is Rose’s third time holding the 36-hole lead at the Masters—the first was 21 years ago. Since 1980, only nine players have held the lead outright for the first two rounds in a row. Of the previous eight players to lead the first two rounds, though, only one has won: Jordan Spieth in 2015.
After Rose was asked about his round, the interviewers inevitably brought the Ryder Cup and his thoughts on making the team. Rose responded, “I don’t put the extra pressure on myself. If I’m honest with you, it’s a huge goal for me, and I’m only going to make the team by playing golf…my whole mentality is, you know, the goal isn’t making the team—the goal is playing well enough to win points for the team.”
Two-time major champion DeChambeau sits one shot behind Rose. This is the fourth time in his career he has started a major with consecutive rounds in the 60s. Two of those times he went on to win the tournament. Rory McIlroy and Corey Conners sit two shots behind Rose.
DeChambeau shares his thoughts on patience: “I think it’s staying grounded. Like, I think of myself as just being here in the present. And it’s cliche to say, but patience is built on understanding where you’re at, and I feel like I’m doing a really good job of just staying in the moment, not thinking about the next or not thinking about the pot and thinking about anything else. I’m just saying, ‘Hey, I’m right here, right now.’”
McIlroy made up for his poor start and charged up the leaderboard with the best round of the day. His 6-under 66 was his sixth career bogey-free round at the Masters. McIlroy started the second nine 3-3-3-3, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since Hideki Matsuyama in the final round of the 2015 Masters.
McIlroy said, “I think overall, just proud of how I responded today after the finish last night. I just had to remind myself that I played really good golf yesterday and I wasn’t going to let two bad holes sort of dictate the narrative for the rest of the week.”
Meanwhile, a few former major champions—Scottie Scheffler, Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton—are sitting comfortably at 5-under.
Bernhard Langer missed the cut by just one stroke during his 41st and final Masters. The two-time Masters champion said, “There were lots of emotions flooding through my mind the last two days as I was walking down the fairways. I saw my wife, I saw my four kids and I saw two of my grandkids come out and support me, and friends and family from Germany.”
