It was another beautiful day at Augusta and I’m here to tell you all what happened on a glorious golfing Friday.
What Happened
Scoring was back today at the Masters, particularly in the morning wave. With easier pins and an overcast sky shots were holding much better on the greens. We have a nice, congested leaderboard heading into the weekend. There will be no amateurs to make the cut this year, so there will be no low amateur. There are 20 players under par and all of them still have a shot heading into Saturday.
Contenders
https://www.masters.com/en_US/scores/index.html
Justin Rose continues to lead, but after a 72 his lead has been trimmed to one. He got off to a poor start, but recovered on the back nine and as long as his back holds up he’ll be right there come Sunday.
Will Zalatoris and Brian Harman both backed up their strong opening rounds and are one back. Zalatoris is a ball striker supreme who certainly has the game to stay in it. Harman is the consummate grinder and has been in good form of late. He’s also a lefty which bodes well on this course.
Jordan Spieth and Marc Leishman are 2 back and both are players to watch. I’ll talk more about Spieth in the next section and Leishman has proven before that he can contend at Augusta.
Bernd Wiesberger, Tony Finau, Justin Thomas, Si Woo Kim, Cameron Champ, and Hideki Matsuyama round out the top 10 and are 3 back. Finau and Champ are both bombers to watch out for. Thomas I’ll get to in the next section. Si Woo Kim is the story of the day as he snapped his putter in half in a rage and finished his round putting with a 3 wood.
Favorites
Dustin Johnson- The world #1 and defending champ missed the cut. He was scuffling coming into the tournament, but this is still a massive surprise. To rub salt into the wound he has to stick around all weekend to present the green jacket to the new champion.
Jon Rahm- A disappointing round today from Rahm. He just wasn’t able to make many birdies and had to settle for another 72. He’s not totally out of it at even, but will likely need at least a 67 if not better to have a chance come Sunday.
Justin Thomas- A really strong 67 has Thomas primed 3 shots back. The best iron player in the world, there are many that had him as the favorite pre tournament. Right now I have him as second favorite after Spieth.
Jordan Spieth- It’s his week. He’s playing great and he has an outrageous track record on this course. I fully expect him to win his 2nd green jacket this weekend.
Bryson Dechambeau- What a round by the Incredible Bulk. He followed up his poor first round with a 67 to get to red figures. The most impressive part of the round is that he only birdied one of the par 5’s. I don’t expect him to truly contend, but he played really well today.
Rory Mcilroy- Missed the cut. He wasn’t even close this week. It looked bleak for Rory this week.
Moving Day Predictions
We will see a leaderboard shake up. As I’ve already said I believe Spieth and Thomas are clear favorites, but I’ve been wrong before. I think we’ll have a pretty clear idea of what 3 or 4 guys have a chance by the end of the day. Xander Schauffele is the big danger man.