Masters Friday: Rory McIlroy Races Ahead at Augusta National, Bryson Misses Cut
4/11/20261 hr 11 min
Andy and Brendan are buzzing after a Friday sprint to the finish from Rory McIlroy, who set history with the largest 36-hole lead by making birdies in six of his last seven holes. They discuss the finish, how he’s elevated his game and brain at Augusta, a place that seems ready to give him it all now, and how far back is too far back with this margin. They run through the list of very game chasers and who might pose a problem should he stumble. Also discussed is the notion of Augusta going “soft” with the setup with greens that were less firm than the opening round on Thursday. Is the 13th hole back? They analyze a full day of momentous decisions and some water balls, including Scottie Scheffler, who seems stuck in neutral. They have a dose of shame to give out for the missed cut crew, including Bryson DeChambeau, who went out in a blaze of ignominy with a triple bogey 18th hole to tumble below the cut line. The notion of LIV preparing Bryson, Rahm, and others for major championship golf is also put to the test, with some quotes from the past coming back to haunt. They close it with some rapid awards from the day and several Storylines No One Is Talking About as this Masters goes to the weekend.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsBrendan Porath· Host0:00
Now, the Shotgun Start in golf is full of mathematics. Um, there's a lot of, a lot of setup work that we have to do in order to make a tournament work. So I'm gonna demonstrate to you just exactly how we do a Shotgun Start here.
Speaker 10:13
And here we go.
Andy Johnson· Host0:16
All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 10:19
Gentlemen, start your engines.
Brendan Porath· Host0:28
[upbeat music] Greetings, and welcome to a Friday edition of the Shotgun Start. It is April 10th. Andy, how we doing?
Andy Johnson· Host0:46
Brendan, I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Brendan Porath· Host0:50
I'm fabulous. We had another, another awesome day at Augusta National. Rory McIlroy just, uh, woodshedding the field right now with an absolute catching fire in the last, whatever, hour and a half, two hours of his round. Six, six birdies in his last seven holes, I think was the final number. [laughs] Kind of- Doubled, doubled up the leaderboard.
Andy Johnson· Host1:10
Went from, uh, you know, to teetering from one to two ahead- It's a history ... at one point tied to, to going from, going, you know, 12 under, uh, to the next closest is six under.
Brendan Porath· Host1:21
It was interesting, like the story honestly about an hour ago was like this incredible leaderboard: Rory, Tommy, Lowry, Fl- uh, uh, Burns,