Masters Day 2 Wrap Up - A Day of Drama

AUGUSTA NATIONAL finally got its own back on Jordan Spieth. Before starting the second round of the 2016 Masters, he had played nine competitive rounds and on each occasion had scored par or better and was a ridiculous 29 under par. When he stepped onto the fifth tee he had improved that to 31 under, was leading the season's first major by five shots and, seemingly, was on cruise control.

On the fifth green he missed his par putt and the next and and the next and walked off with a double-bogey. Four putts? Spieth doesn't take four putts. That's what Ernie Els does.

From that point onwards, it was a battle for survival. Every time he took a step forward he almost immediately took two steps back. He birdied the 15th, for instance, but three-putted the par-three 16th from nowhere, dropped another at the 17th and had to hole a 15-footer at the last to save par for a round of 74 and a one-shot lead ahead of Rory McIlroy, whose 71 was one of the best scores of a trying day.

Spieth and McIlroy stand firm and prepare for Masters duel. By @mrewanmurray https://t.co/LsQadixwbK (Pic: EPA) pic.twitter.com/IHIvPdh815

— Guardian sport (@guardian_sport) April 9, 2016

With the wind blowing at up to 20mph and the greens getting ever faster as the day progressed, not a single player broke 70. Bryson DeChambeau, the leading American amateur, who was playing with Spieth, stood on the 18th tee needing a par four for a brilliant round of 69. His first drive disappeared into the trees on the left, never to be seen again. His second drive followed the same path but he found this one. In the end it cost him a triple-bogey seven.

McIlroy had a rollercoaster round. He began the day on two under par and quickly moved to four under before giving it all back and falling away to one under. However, the Northern Irishman refused to buckle and birdied the 13th, 15th and 16th holes to finish the day on three under. He trails Spieth by a shot and must now believe he win the career Grand Slam. When he was playing the 11th, he had trailed the defending champion by eight.

McIlroy could have won his first major title at Augusta when he took a four-shot lead into the final round in 2011, only to collapse to a closing 80 to finish 10 shots behind the winner Charl Schwartzel.

The 26-year-old bounced back to win the US Open two months later and the US PGA title in 2012, meaning victory in The Open at Hoylake in 2014 left him needing victory in The Masters to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in having won all four majors.

“I sort of feel that Augusta owes me something and I have come with that attitude,” McIlroy said. “I have come here to get something that I should have had a long time ago. You need to be so focused and in control of your emotions here. It’s about not getting fazed and mentally I have been good the last couple of days. I need to keep that going for the next two days.”

He will play the third round in the company of Spieth - a dream pairing for the "patrons".

“Look, I know it’s a very big weekend for me. I know that,” he said. “But when I’m out there on the golf course, I just have to be completely 100% focused on the task at hand, and if I can do that and stay in the moment and be completely focused over every golf shot I hit from now until Sunday night, then hopefully everything will work out the way I want it to.”

Despite his poor round, Spieth still became the first player in Masters history to hold the outright lead for six rounds in succession, but joked he would rather play with someone “less threatening” than McIlroy. “We seem to both be on our games right now and focusing on this week. With a lot of players behind us there is potential for someone to shoot a few under tomorrow and move into the lead from outside the top 25. I don think either one of us will focus on each other, we’ll focus on the course. Sure it’s exciting to play with Rory, but we’ll not think much more of it.

"I didn't play well. I hardly hit a green in regulation and you can't do that and score well at Augusta. You just can't  afford to do that here," said the champion. "But I learnt a few things out there today, about myself and about the course."

The top 32 players are separated by just six shots, with Danny Willett, Sergio Garcia and Shane Lowry just four off the lead despite rounds of 74, 75 and 76 respectively.

DeChambeau was on level par despite his nightmare finish. Only seven players finished the second round under par - Spieth, McIlroy, Scott Piercey and Danny Lee on two under, and Soren Kjeldsen, Hideki Matsuyama and Brandt Snedeker on one under.

Paul Casey and Justin Rose followed their opening 69s with rounds of 77, while Ian Poulter was one shot worse, but all three comfortably made the cut, which fell at six over par.

On another day of high drama, Zach Johnson was penalised two shots for grounding his club in Rae's Creek and it meant he missed the cut. He was in good company - Phil Mickelson was also heading home after a dreadful finish to his round of 79.

There were emotional scenes as Tom Watson, a two-time winner, brought the curtain down on his Masters career with a round of 78. He missed the cut by two shots. "There was a lump in my throat walking down the 18th," he said. "The fans have been so generous to me over the years. I have my family and friends with me and this has been a really special couple of days. I only wish that I had been able to find a couple of shots from somewhere to make it through to the weekend."

And what a weekend it promises to be. Jordan Spieth going head to head with Rory McIlroy for the Green Jacket - what more could we ask for?