AUGUSTA, Ga. — The pandemic-delayed Masters staged its penultimate round on Saturday, with Dustin Johnson building an early lead but the top of the leader board otherwise densely crowded with contenders.
Some who hoped to remain in the mix slipped early, though. Phil Mickelson bogeyed five of his first eight holes on Saturday. Bernhard Langer, the two-time victor at Augusta who on Saturday became the oldest man in tournament history to make the cut, bogeyed as much on the front nine as he did during the whole of the first round. Louis Oosthuizen, who started the round three strokes off the lead, did not make a birdie until the ninth hole on Saturday.
Tiger Woods, the defending champion, is searching for his sixth victory at Augusta. Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, survived the cut to play this weekend after rocky rounds earlier in the week.
The weather at Augusta National Golf Club is enviable: sunny and in the low 70s.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Bryson DeChambeau, feeling out of sorts, tested negative for coronavirus.
- Dustin Johnson takes solo lead.
- Tiger Woods has an uncanny Jack Nicklaus parallel.
- Rory McIlroy’s new perspective could help him finally conquer the Masters.
- The kids are all right.
- Bernhard Langer, 63, becomes the oldest golfer to make the Masters cut.
- Players are figuring out No. 5.
Bryson DeChambeau, feeling out of sorts, tested negative for coronavirus.
Pre-tournament favorite Bryson DeChambeau felt so out of sorts after his first two eventful, disappointing days at this year’s Masters tournament that he had himself tested for Covid-19. Although the test result from Friday night was negative, on Saturday morning DeChambeau said he still felt under the weather.
“Yeah, I’m not good, unfortunately,” DeChambeau who just barely made the cut when he finished the second round at even par for the tournament. “But it is what it is. I don’t know what it is. There’s like something in my stomach that’s just not doing well.”
DeChambeau described various symptoms that he said slightly contributed to his subpar play.
“I’ve felt really, really odd and just not 100 percent,” he said. “Some of that’s played into it. I just feel kind of dull and numb out there — just not fully aware of everything and making some silly, silly mistakes.”
DeChambeau added that he occasionally felt dizzy.
“Every time I’d bend over and come back up, I’d like lose my stance a little bit,” he said. “I’ve got to go and do some blood work and get checked out and figure out what’s going on for this off‑season.”
Saturday morning was also the first time that DeChambeau addressed his tee shot on the third hole Friday, which ended up as a lost ball and led to a demoralizing triple bogey as well as a spate of erratic play that included consecutive bogeys.
“It definitely throws you for a loop,” DeChambeau said of the lost ball which landed only 10 feet from the fairway. He added: “So it just seems like there’s a lot of things going not in the right way.”
Dustin Johnson takes solo lead.
Dustin Johnson, who birdied three of his first four holes Saturday to separate himself from the lead pack, could not be more different in temperament than Bryson DeChambeau and his physics-focused approach. A few years ago, Johnson played a practice round with DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, another known tinkerer. Johnson listened to Mickelson and DeChambeau discussing the science behind uphill and downhill putts, then shook his head and said to them, “If I hang around you guys much longer, I’ll never break 100.”
Rory McIlroy, who was grouped with Johnson for the first two rounds, described Johnson’s mindset as “see ball, hit ball, see putt, hole putt, go to the next” and said, “I think he’s got one of the best attitudes towards the game of golf in the history of the game.”
Johnson’s eagle on par-5 No. 2 was his fourth on the hole in 37 career rounds at Augusta National.
Tiger Woods has an uncanny Jack Nicklaus parallel.
The last player to successfully defend his title at the Masters was Tiger Woods in 2002. Can he do it again this year? For those looking for omens, there is this: In 1986, Jack Nicklaus, whose all time majors victory record Woods is chasing, won his 18th major as the 33rd-ranked player in the world. He went into the tournament with five Masters titles and was tied for 17th after 36 holes. In 2020, Woods is No. 33 in the world, with five Masters titles, and is tied for 17th after 36 holes.
It has been an up and down year for Woods, but most expect him to contend for a record-tying sixth victory at Augusta National.
Rory McIlroy’s new perspective could help him finally conquer the Masters.
Rory McIlroy played the first nine in 3-under, looking much more like the world No. 1 that he was when the pandemic started than he did during his dismal opening 75. He had rebounded in the second round with a six-under-par 66 for a 36-hole total of three under that left him well under the projected cut line of even par.
“I honestly have been playing so good coming in here, and then I go into the first round and I shoot 75, and I’m like, ‘Where the hell did that come from?’” McIlroy said.
His resilience may stem from his inner circle, whom he spent much of the past year enhancing his connection to. He and his wife, Erica Stoll, welcomed their first child this August, an event McIlroy said altered his perspective.
“I grew up as an only child and an only child playing golf,” McIlroy said, “so I feel like the whole world revolved around me for a long time. And now it doesn’t. It revolves around this little person.”
Long seen as Tiger Woods’s heir apparent, McIlroy, 31, collected four major titles before his 26th birthday. A victory at the Masters, the only major tournament that has eluded him, would give him a career Grand Slam. Anything less would extend his winless streak in the majors to six years
The kids are all right.
Look up and down the leader board, and you will see names you have long known, loved and/or reviled: Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods.
But the tournament’s top ranks include plenty of players making their inaugural appearances at the Masters, including Abraham Ancer, who is 29 years old and tied for first at 9 under par. Sungjae Im, 22, is at 8 under. Sebastián Muñoz will turn 28 in January, but will enter the third round at 6 under.
Ancer, whose framed Masters invitation hangs in his living room, first played Augusta National last week and found some of the terrain more challenging than it had seemed on television. He played 27 holes that day — good practice, it turned out, for Friday, when he had to go 25 after Thursday’s rain delay.
“I didn’t want to get here for the first time ever this week and being like, you know, really excited,” said Ancer, who shares the lead with Johnson, Thomas, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith. “I wanted to feel like I was here and I’ve been here before and it was more normal.”
History does not give first-time Masters players great odds of winning: It has happened three times, including at the first and second tournaments. The only player to manage the feat after 1935 was Fuzzy Zoeller, who won in 1979.
Bernhard Langer, 63, becomes the oldest golfer to make the Masters cut.
Let’s talk about Bernhard Langer.
He has won the Masters twice. He stands at 3-under par, the same as Rory McIlroy and far better than pre-tournament favorite Bryson DeChambeau. He has been pleased with his drives.
And, yes, he played much of his best golf during the Reagan administration, when he won his first Masters title and contended at the U.S. Open and the Open Championship. Now, Langer, 63, is the oldest man to make the cut at the Masters, narrowly seizing the record from Tommy Aaron, the 1973 champion. (Former Masters winners have lifetime entry into the tournament.)
“My knees are shot right now,” Langer said on Friday, when he had to finish his rain-delayed first round and play his second. “My wife just said, ‘You’re not going to hit balls, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no chance. I’m done.’”
Langer, though, is one of the standard-setters for younger golfers who wonder what their careers might look like in a decade or two or three. Just on Thursday, Tiger Woods mentioned Langer as one of the game’s elders who can still find ways to stay in the mix at Augusta National.
“So understanding how to play it is a big factor, and it’s one of the reasons why early in my career that I saw Jack contending a lot, I saw Raymond contending late in his career, now Bernhard and Freddy always contend here late in their careers,” Woods said. “Just understanding how to play this golf course was a big part of it.”
Langer is decidedly not playing Augusta in the way of DeChambeau, whose towering drives nearly drove him out of the tournament. The course, Langer said, hardly makes him feel younger.
“It actually makes me feel older when I play with these young guys and I see how far they hit it and how short I hit it,” Langer, whose drives in the first two rounds averaged 264 yards. (DeChambeau, 27, has been going about 328, while Phil Mickelson, 50, has averaged nearly 299.)
“I like this golf course,” Langer said. “I think I know how to get around it, even though I hit very long clubs. But it’s certainly not easy.”
Told Friday that he was a virtual lock to make the cut and take Aaron’s record, Langer replied, “How about that? I’ll drink to that.”
He was planning a Shandy.
Players are figuring out No. 5.
No hole gave players more trouble in 2019 than the one christened Magnolia, which Augusta National had lengthened by 40 yards. This year, the men pursuing a green jacket are proving far better at solving No. 5.
There were 103 bogeys on the hole last year — four of them by Tiger Woods, who won the tournament anyway — and six double bogeys. The hole surrendered just 13 birdies over the tournament, when no other on the course gave away fewer than 20.
Through the first two rounds this week, the field, aided by experience and course conditions, managed 12 birdies, 44 bogeys and one double bogey.
“With that top tier being a lot softer this year, coming in here from a little bit further back, being able to hold it in that back section makes that green play a hell of a lot bigger.,” said Danny Willett, who won the Masters in 2016 and bogeyed No. 5 twice last year before missing the cut.
This year, Willett, who is at 7 under, made par there the first two rounds.
“Usually you’re coming in there trying to just pitch it over that downslope and then hope that it stays short of the back bunker,” he said on Friday, “but with it being softer this year, your only real bad miss there is short where it’s going to be a tricky putt up and over.”
Saturday’s cut culls the field to 60.
Some 65 players lasted long enough to play on Saturday at the Masters in 2019, giving the tournament the largest weekend field in its history.
But the list of qualifiers for the third and fourth rounds is a little smaller this year: 60, after Augusta National decided that the cut would be limited to the 50 lowest scorers plus any ties. Those included in the field are 58 pros and two amateurs. Since 2013, the cut had been set at the low 50, ties and anyone within 10 strokes of the leader.
Through Saturday morning, when much of the field finished their second rounds, the cut line was set at even par.
Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said Wednesday that officials made the change in hopes of better forecasting the field and because the more forgiving rule was not helping all that many players contend seriously for a green jacket.
“The last several years, I think we’ve only had two players who have been in contention who made the cut only because of the 10-shot rule,” said Ridley, who added that “while certainly it can happen, it just doesn’t.”
The Masters first imposed a cut in 1957. Of the ten golfers who had made the most cuts coming into the tournament, two — Bernhard Langer and Phil Mickelson — survived to finish the weekend. Through two rounds, Langer was 3 under par, tied for 28th, and Mickelson was tied for 17th at 5 under par.
Danny Willett is back in contention, four years after his Masters win.
Danny Willett won the Masters in 2016 and not much after that. He is most certainly in the mix at 7-under par after he posted a 66 during Friday’s second round.
All the more remarkable is he did it without his driver, whose face cracked Friday morning as he finished his delayed first round.
“I’ve got a spare head, but it wasn’t as good, so we just thought we took the decision out and didn’t even put it in the bag for the second round,” said Willett, who estimated that the difference between relying on his driver and his three-wood was probably 30 yards.
“This place for me has always been a second‐shot golf course, and especially with how receptive some of these smaller tiers are, it kind of made it a little bit easier,” he added. “You’re coming in with six‐iron instead of eight‐iron, your ball is still going to stop on the green, whereas in years gone past, that would have been a real big disadvantage.”
Willett’s driver was about three years old, but, as Willett put it, “I don’t like tinkering.”
“The only problem with not liking to change all the time is that sooner or later something like that might happen,” he said. He had not decided whether he’d slip a new driver into his bag for the third round.
“It’s one of those you feel more comfortable with the 3‐wood that we’ve used for a long time now, and you put a better swing on it if you’re not sure about a driver,” he said. “It’s maybe not worth it, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”
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