As the second round of the 90th Masters Tournament gets underway at Augusta National Golf Club on Friday, early-morning tee times have handed world number one Scottie Scheffler and British veteran Justin Rose a golden opportunity to close the gap on overnight co-leaders Rory McIlroy and Sam Burns.
Defending champion McIlroy, who is bidding to become just the fourth golfer in history to claim back-to-back Masters titles, carded an impressive five-under-par 67 in his opening round alongside Burns, sharing the top spot on the leaderboard after 18 holes of play. Despite finding only five of 14 fairways — and just one on the front nine — the five-time major winner pulled off a series of sensational recovery shots from tree-lined rough that would have drawn praise from Spanish Masters legend Seve Ballesteros, securing his second-best opening round at the tournament. “The first seven holes were really important, that I played them in par,” McIlroy said of his opening round. “I made some good swings from where I found myself.”
For Burns, who held the 54-hole lead at last year’s U.S. Open, the opening 67 marked his lowest career round at Augusta in 13 appearances, achieved even as the tournament’s iconic greens ran firm and fast. “They’re only going to get firmer,” Burns warned of the conditions. “As the golf course speeds up, it only gets more difficult out there, and I think it’s going to be a really good test.”
Behind the leading pair, 2014 champion Patrick Reed, American Kurt Kitayama and Australian Jason Day all tied for third at two-under-par 69. Like McIlroy and Burns, all three will tee off in Friday’s afternoon wave, when the baked-out course is expected to become even more challenging.
That leaves the first half of Friday’s draw to two of golf’s biggest names hungry to climb the leaderboard: 2013 U.S. Open champion Justin Rose — a three-time Masters runner-up who lost a playoff to McIlroy for the green jacket last year — and four-time major winner Scheffler, who is chasing a third Masters title in five seasons. Both are three strokes off the lead in a group of players tied at one-under 70, which also includes later starters Shane Lowry, the 2019 British Open champion from Ireland, and two-time major winner Xander Schauffele, who is still seeking his first Masters title.
Scheffler, who won the Masters in 2022 and 2024, got off to a blistering start in his opening round with an eagle on the par-five second hole followed by a birdie on the par-four third. But as afternoon temperatures climbed and greens hardened further, he could not add more low scores, settling for pars on the par-five 13th and 15th holes. He is optimistic his early Friday tee time will bring more favorable conditions. “I played pretty solid. A lot of good stuff,” Scheffler said. “I hit it nice, made some good iron shots, but it got so firm late in the day, it was pretty challenging.”
Rose, meanwhile, notched five birdies in his opening round, with four coming on Augusta’s famous par-five holes, but slipped back from the leading pack with back-to-back bogeys to close out his round. The 44-year-old veteran leaned into his years of experience at Augusta, emphasizing that patience is the key to navigating the brutal current conditions. “Every hole you’re just being patient through experience, knowing that grinding out the pars is a good thing,” Rose said. “Just eating up the holes is a good thing.”
The tough opening conditions have already derailed the title hopes of several big names, who are at risk of missing the cut for the final two rounds, which goes to the top 50 players and ties. Two-time major champion Jon Rahm of Spain sat well outside the cut line after an opening 78, while two-time U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau carded a 76, and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre shot an 80.
Rose added that the current rock-hard, lightning-fast greens test more than just shot-making — they demand strategic caution from every competitor. “I can’t even point to anywhere where you can be aggressive,” he said. “I think it’s in their control really how they want it to be… when it gets completely rock hard and you can’t access any pin anywhere, then a lot of good shot-making is taken out of the equation.”