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    Rory McIlroy sets Masters record with 6-shot lead after 36 holes
    • April 11, 2026

    By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer

    AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy delivered a dynamic finish to the Masters on Friday, looking every bit like someone who has done this before. Six birdies over the last seven holes gave him a 7-under-par 65 and a six-shot lead that set a Masters record through 36 holes.

    The final hour of a fascinating day started to look like a victory lap.

    McIlroy, who made three straight birdies early in his round, found himself locked in a duel with old nemesis Patrick Reed, the 2018 champion who birdied the par-3 12th to tie for the lead. McIlroy was coming off a few loose swings when he reached the heart of Amen Corner.

    “Standing on the 12th tee, I didn’t imagine being six shots ahead,” McIlroy said.

    Before long, he was all alone.

    His tee shot over Rae’s Creek on the dangerous 12th hole landed 7 feet behind the flag. He birdied both par-5s after having to lay up from the trees. He took advantage of the lower pin at the par-3 16th for what amounted to a tap-in birdie.

    And then he really sent the gallery into a frenzy when he chipped in from 30 yards on the 17th. McIlroy couldn’t see the hole over the crest of the hill on the green, but he knew it was good because “I could see everyone in the grandstand start to stand up.”

    “That’s a bonus,” he said.

    And there was one more to go – another perfect approach that came down the slope to 6 feet for one last birdie.

    That put him at 12-under 132, six shots clear of Reed (69) and Sam Burns (71). The previous record for the largest 36-hole lead at Augusta National was five shots by six players, most recently Scottie Scheffler in 2022. The first was Harry “Lighthorse” Cooper in 1936, the only player in that position who did not win the Masters.

    If McIlroy holds on, he would become the fourth player to win back-to-back at the Masters, joining Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.

    He had a two-shot lead after 36 holes in 2011 and stretched it to four shots going into the final round before he famously imploded with an 80. That was the start of his Masters heartache that lasted until a year ago, when he triumphed in a playoff to complete the career Grand Slam and finally prove he could win at Augusta National.

    Maybe he should start thinking about next year’s menu for the Masters Club dinner.

    “I know what can happen around here, good and bad,” McIlroy said with a smile. “You don’t have to remind me not to get ahead of myself. There’s a long way to go. I got off to an amazing start.”

    Augusta allowed for that. It was warmer, brighter, drier. The wind wasn’t quite as strong and the gusts didn’t swirl as much. And there was much better scoring in part because of more generous pin positions, including on 16 and 18, where cleanly struck shots could feed toward the hole.

    The scores were nearly two shots lower than Thursday.

    That didn’t help everyone, least of all Bryson DeChambeau. He fought back from an opening 76 and was one shot below the cut line when it took him two shots to get out of a greenside bunker on the 18th, the second shot rolling off the false front back down to the fairway. He made triple bogey and missed the cut.

    Reed was bogey-free until failing to save par on the final hole. That also cost him a spot in the final group Saturday with McIlroy. They were paired together in the last group in 2018, with seemingly all of Augusta on McIlroy’s side, only for Reed to win handily.

    Burns birdied his last two holes to salvage a 71 and will be paired with McIlroy.

    Justin Rose, the playoff loser to McIlroy a year ago, had a rough day with the putter and still shot 69 to be part of the group at 5-under 139 – now seven shots behind – along with Shane Lowry (69) and Tommy Fleetwood, who had two eagles in his round of 68.

    McIlroy took three weeks off heading into the Masters – no one since Adam Scott in 2013 won the Masters coming off a break that long – and felt it was to his advantage.

    He took multiple trips to Augusta – sometimes day trips to get home for dinner – and spent most of his time working on his short game, which has been superb even without that bonus birdie on the 17th.

    “I felt like I was part of the furniture,” McIlroy said of all his visits to the course.

    Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked player who has won two of the past four Masters, is now 12 shots behind. Scheffler twice hit into the water on the par-5s on the back nine, made bogey on both, and shot 74 for his first round over par at the Masters in three years.

    The players in what looked to be the B-flight had all finished before McIlroy went on his astonishing run of birdies. Cameron Young and U.S. Amateur champion Mason Howell had a front-row seat to McIlroy in full flight at the Masters.

    “You’ve got to stay in your own lane, but it’s hard not to watch that,” Howell said after missing the cut. “That chip-in on 17 was unreal. That was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in sports, and I got to witness it in person. So that was awesome.”

    SCHEFFLER HITS TWO SHOTS IN WATER

    Scheffler battled back from two bogeys and was even par for the second round, still very much in the mix Friday and still with a pair of par-5s to play. He was not expecting two shots into the water.

    Scheffler hit 3-iron into a tributary of Rae’s Creek on the par-5 13th, and his second shot into the par-5 15th went over the green and rolled into the pond on the 16th hole.

    Both led to bogeys, and he didn’t recover. His 2-over 74 was his first round over par at the Masters since a 75 in the second round in 2023.

    “It was frustrating to get it back to even, have a couple of par-5s in front of me, and then not do many things I felt wrong and wasn’t able to convert basically anything coming down the stretch,” said Scheffler, who was at even-par 144.

    The water balls stand out. Scheffler tried to play a draw into the 13th, a deceptively difficult shot because the ball is slightly above the feet but a shot not cleanly struck tends to stay out to the right, and that’s where the trouble is.

    “I just tried to kind of swing it with the slope and just didn’t catch it that solid and kind of hung out there,” Scheffler said. “But that was one … to that pin specifically that’s a shot that I could get in there close, so I felt like it was worth the risk of going for it.”

    The real problem was his putting. He didn’t make many, mainly an issue of speed more than line.

    “I felt like I definitely played better than my score,” he said.

    Scheffler, trying to win his third Masters in the last five years, now has a big climb. The two times he won, he went into the weekend with at least a share of the lead.

    FRUSTRATED MacINTYRE FLIPS OFF GREEN

    Robert MacIntyre made no public apologies for his fiery behavior at the Masters this week, breezing past reporters after his first-round 80 and then declining interview requests after a 71 on Friday that caused him to miss the cut.

    The 29-year-old MacIntyre, who tied for second last week at the Texas Open, raised some eyebrows on Thursday at Augusta National – where decorum is held in high esteem – when he flashed the middle finger upon hitting a ball into the water. MacIntyre also slammed a couple of clubs and muttered some curse words loud enough to be caught live by the TV mics.

    It was unclear whether Augusta National took any disciplinary action.

    MacIntyre finished at 7 over, missing the cut by three shots, and headed straight to the Player Services Building. At one point, someone posted to his Instagram story what appeared to be an AI-produced image of a Masters gnome in his likeness giving the bird.

    Whoever it was had a sense of humor about things.

    DeChambeau probably didn’t find anything funny about his finish.

    He was 3 over coming to the par-4 18th before hitting his drive under a pine tree. He managed to punch his next into a bunker left of the green but left the ensuing shot in the sand. His fourth rolled off the front of the green, and the bogey pitch that DeChambeau needed to make the cut never had a chance; the two-time U.S. Open champ made triple bogey and finished at 6 over.

    It was a grind for many of the game’s best players to make the low 50 and ties and play the weekend.

    Brian Harman was a full 10 shots better than his opening round on Friday, pairing a 69 with that 79 to make the cut on the number. Rasmus Hojgaard and Jon Rahm each improved by eight shots with rounds of 70 to also make the cut on the number.

    Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion, was among the favorites before his opening 78.

    “Yesterday was just an anomaly where everything that could go wrong went wrong,” Rahm said. “Not that I shot myself out of the tournament but I’m going to need an absolute miracle starting today, and didn’t quite do enough. I’m going to need a heck of a round tomorrow to give myself a chance and even then, might be a little too far away.”

    Or a lot too far away given McIlroy’s strong start.

    JJ Spaun, the U.S. Open champion from San Dimas High and San Diego State and the winner last week in San Antonio, opened with a 2-over 74 but put himself in trouble right away with three bogeys in a four-hole span early Friday. Not even two birdies in his last three holes could save him. He finished at 5 over.

    Former British Open champ Cameron Smith shot 74-77 to miss the cut for the sixth straight time in a major.

    Nobody had a bigger roller coaster around the cut line than Akshay Bhatia.

    Playing late in the day, the winner of the Arnold Palmer Invitational was at 4 over before his bogey at the 16th. Bhatia got back on the cut line by holing out from a bunker at the 17th, then proceeded to double bogey the closing hole to miss the cut.

    LI OVERCOMES ILLNESS

    The majors seem to bring out the best in Haotong Li of China, even when he’s so sick he wonders if he can even play.

    Such was the case Friday at the Masters. Li said he was in the bathroom most of the night and “kind of live in the toilet” even when he got to Augusta National. And then he made four straight birdies on the back nine and shot 69 to finish at 4-under 140.

    “I didn’t hit many balls on the driving range. I was feeling really, really bad,” Li said. “No energy, fuzzy, want to throw up something. I actually just planned to play a few holes, see how it goes. If really sick, then I probably just decide not to. So glad I survived today.”

    Li closed out the 2017 British Open at Royal Birkdale with a 63. Three years later, he opened 67-65 at Harding Park in the PGA Championship to become China’s first player to lead after any round of a major championship.

    NO LOW AMATEUR THIS YEAR

    For the second straight year, none of the amateurs will be sticking around for the weekend.

    That’s not to suggest they all are leaving disappointed, and some of them are not in any hurry to leave at all.

    “My friends were telling me, ‘Thank you for inviting me, it was awesome to see you.’ Yeah, I would love to have played better, but it’s fine,” Mateo Pulcini of Argentina said after shooting 81-78. “We’re going to keep having fun. We’re going to come to watch tomorrow and Sunday and enjoy the moment and the tournament.”

    Amateurs have access to stay in the Crow’s Nest in the top of the clubhouse even if they fail to make the 36-hole cut.

    Fifa Laopakdee of Thailand, who won the Asia-Pacific Amateur, had rounds of 80-75. He also had the pleasure of spending two rounds with Fred Couples, who even at 66 oozes charisma and cool.

    “Oh, man, if you give me an hour I can write 100 bullet points what I learned this week,” said Laopakdee, who plays at Arizona State. “Play with Freddie and Min Woo (Lee), I learned a lot. If you watch Freddie’s first 14 holes (Thursday), it was perfect golf.”

    Jackson Herrington, whom Mason Howell defeated in the U.S. Amateur final last year, and British Amateur champion Ethan Fang fared the best among the amateurs, each finishing at 8-over par.

    “Maybe if I’m allowed to come out and practice, I’ll be out here tomorrow,” Herrington said. “It’s the best place on Earth. I know that.”

    KOEPKA IS IN THE MIX

    Brooks Koepka’s first mission was to get in the mix in his return to the PGA Tour after four years with Saudi-funded LIV Golf. He didn’t think it would take until the Masters, but here he is.

    Koepka has made 11 birdies through two rounds, enough to offset some soft bogeys. He had a 69 on Friday and goes into the weekend at 3-under 141. Key to his second round was changing the setting on his driver and getting the ball in play.

    “Ball-striking has been really good this week. Putted better today. Short game has been kind of iffy,” he said. “But I like the way I’m playing right now. Just need to be a little bit more aggressive.”

    Tom Watson was critical of the PGA Tour for letting Koepka return under a program that kept Koepka from getting equity grants for five years and not having access to bonus money this year. Watson felt the tour reneged on its promise to ban LIV players for life. If anything, he said Koepka or anyone else should have spent a year on the Korn Ferry Tour.

    “I would have to look at exactly what he said. Just going off your summary, everybody is entitled to their own opinion,” Koepka said. “He’s not the first person that’s thought that. I’m just grateful to be out here. The people that make those decisions let me out here. If you’re going to get the opportunity to come back out, you’re going to take it.”

    More to come on this story.

    ​ Orange County Register 

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