Rory McIlroy’s Masters replay has 2 equally appealing results

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Of the many people who spent the first two days of the Masters watching Rory McIlroy with the quiet awe of a tourist teetering on the edge of the Grand Canyon, perhaps no one was more surprised than Mason Howell.

The 18-year-old has been looking forward to watching McIlroy at Augusta National on Thursday and Friday for months. When the excitement started on the first tee box, he was so excited that he momentarily lost control of his limbs.

“I mean, I wouldn’t say I was nervous going into it, but I was when I got to the first game yesterday,” Howell said with a laugh Friday afternoon. “I didn’t feel my arms and I hit it on the nine fairway.”

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Howell wasn’t just a witness to McIlroy’s first two-day blowout at Augusta National — he was the victim of a crime, competing with McIlroy’s team for his status as the US Amateur champion. The 18-year-old Howell admitted on Friday afternoon that he started thinking about the possibility of playing alongside McIlroy – honoring the club’s long-standing tradition with the US rookie and green jacket winner – before he was crowned (just after the semi-finals, if that).

And what, in his wide-eyed youth, did Mason Howell see?

The only outstanding 36-hole performance in Masters history.

McIlroy has endured many stages of good golf at Augusta National, but few have risen to the level of stupor displayed by the 35-year-old on Friday afternoon, when he birdied six of the last seven holes to move six shots clear of the field, the most in Masters history.

In the first two days of the Masters, the winner of the green jacket (12 under) beat the reigning US Amateur (nine over) by 21 shots. He beat his old nemesis, Bryson DeChambeau, by 18. And he beat everyone else with only 16 players inside. ten shots as the sun sets on Friday evening at Augusta National.

In general, a blowup like this is not appropriate for an argument. But speaking of course, the explosive golfers haven’t been Rory McIlroy in his debut at Augusta National since he conquered his demons in a dramatic, sport-changing fashion 12 months earlier.

In a strange way, McIlroy’s lead makes the weekend’s story at Augusta National endlessly fascinating and surprisingly easy. The week started with endless results, but the weekend will start with two: Either McIlroy erased all of his Masters trauma from last year to spend the next Masters tearing the field limb from limb, or he erased all of the Masters trauma only to find a new, more terrifying form.

If you want to believe that we are on the verge of seeing history, there is plenty of evidence on your side. First, Masters history is littered with examples of heroes who seem to improve with age at Augusta National. Phil Mickelson, who lost his second Masters since the turn of the century, is probably the closest historical analogue – he won two more green jackets following his major championship victory on his first tour in 2004, and seemed to succeed on the course after kicking the door down. But he is not alone as an example: Jack Nicklaus (who won at the age of 46 in 1986) and Tiger Woods (who won at the age of 44 in 2019) are also votes in support of the idea that age comes before beauty on the Augusta green.

Of course, none of these golfers carried a six-shot on Saturday morning, which seemed to further McIlroy’s case. As does the fact that McIlroy is not playing well. He got lucky with a few big birdies on Friday afternoon, including the 13th hole, where a rough fairway left him a window to escape unscathed for the second straight day, resulting in a birdie.

In other words, if he indeed opening weekend, there’s reason to believe the current margin could grow even worse – as even McIlroy admitted on Friday afternoon, when he suggested his birdie-birdie-par-birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie finish probably didn’t impress his novice partner.

“Hopefully [Howell] “He realized you don’t have to be perfect to shoot low scores,” McIlroy said.

But before you go ahead and crown it on Friday night, it’s probably worth mentioning the rest the result. McIlroy is no stranger to trauma at the Masters — you may recall that his scarred muscles at Augusta National were a big part of the story when he finally grabbed the green jacket for the first time last spring — and hitting six shots would represent a whole new kind of trauma, even for a golfer who has it all.

Even for an optimist, it is not disrespectful to point out that there is a lot of golf yet to be played. A thirty-six hole lead is a lifetime for any golfer, even Rory McIlroy, and the lead at the Masters seems to do strange things to the players it holds. You may recall that the four-shot opportunity – with only nine holes remaining – remains the second most notable finish in McIlroy’s Masters history, even if it happened in a previous life, in 2011.

But forget the complete meltdown – it’s not too far-fetched to envision a world where McIlroy’s lead goes out to six shots to three on a tumultuous day at the Masters. Few people would have envisioned such a development, yet it will reshape McIlroy’s path to the final round at Augusta National. Is a triple-digit return on Sunday at the Masters too risky? McIlroy himself saw that lead disappear last year!

“Yeah, I’m going to try to wrap my mind around it,” McIlroy said on Friday. “That distraction is usually a good thing for me, especially on the late tee and the lead.”

A little diversion is something good, because whether McIlroy wants it or not, he’s once again the story of Masters week. From many results we came down to two – and McIlroy’s rivals took their bets.

“I think he’s got a six-shot lead. That’s crazy,” Howell said Friday night, as patrons (and probably some of the players) were still crying from McIlroy’s 65.

“I mean, he’s got a lot of weight off his shoulders now. He’s playing with ease, and I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t do it this weekend.”