Masters Tournament: Justin Rose leads on Day 2
"For sure," Rose said, "I didn't quite appreciate the scoring was going to be quite so good today."
Augusta: Justin Rose probably should have stayed in bed. The Englishman ended Day 2 at the Masters in the same place he began — atop the leaderboard — only to discover the objects in his mirror were suddenly a lot closer than they appeared.
“For sure,” Rose said, “I didn’t quite appreciate the scoring was going to be quite so good today.”
For everyone else, maybe. Rose followed his opening-round 65 with an even-par 72 that let his rivals squeeze most of the air out of what had been a four-shot cushion. On Thursday, he was one of only three golfers to post a round in the 60s.
Overcast skies Friday made the greens more receptive and by day’s end, there were more cards turned in with 60-something on them — 18 in all — than you’d see at the VFW hall on Bingo Night.
“For as tough as this place has been playing,” said Justin Thomas, who shot 67, “I felt like it was as easy as it could have been … a lot of my birdies have been pretty low stress or pretty easy.”
For all that, Rose’s 137 total at the midway point of the tournament was still good enough for a one-shot lead over Will Zalatoris and Brian Harman.
Zalatoris, who was plugging away on the Korn Ferry Tour about this time last year, birdied the final three holes for 68. He called his approach into the 18th his most satisfying swing of the round, “knowing that it would get me into the final group.” Harman, a left-hander who didn’t think he’d qualify as recently as last month, birdied the last two for 69.
“Whenever you look upon the leaderboard and see your name up there pretty high at Augusta, it’s hard not to get nervous,” Harman said.
I” was nervous. But it was nice to settle down with a good birdie on 2, and I struck it well all day today.” He wasn’t the only one. Lurking another shot back at 139 were 2015 winners Jordan Spieth (68) and Marc Leishman (67).
That, in turn, was one better than a six-pack of golfers at 140, including Thomas, Tony Finau (66), and most improbably perhaps, Si Woo Kim (69).
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