AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy can’t help but look at the leaderboards.
Watch him prance from fairway to green at any tournament he’s in contention and you will see him stealing glances at them any chance he can. The five-time major winner always wants to know where he stands.
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At Augusta National, where analog is king, the large white boards deliver suspense at their own pace and on Friday, what unfolded slowly across those name and number plates was a clear storyline.
A year after vanquishing the ghosts of Masters past in excruciating fashion, McIlroy is in the driver’s seat as he pursues a second green jacket and the title of first back-to-back winner at Augusta since Tiger Woods in 2001.
Be it a renewed sense of purpose, a sudden freedom or simply that he is, once again, playing some of the best golf of anyone who calls this game their profession, McIlroy blazed his way to Friday 65 and a 6-shot gap between him and the rest of the field. In 90 editions of the Masters, no one has ever held such a lead after two rounds.
“I’ve always felt like this golf course can let you get on runs if you allow it,” said McIlroy. “I’ve always had the ability to go on these runs, but I think it was getting to the point where I would allow myself to play the course the way that I knew that I could. So it was getting past myself. It was staying aggressive.”
It is not that McIlroy was flying under the radar going into this week, but more so that there was so much focus on remembering last year’s epic — multiple TV features, YouTube videos and a documentary — that his play this week was seen as secondary. Just not by him. As he said Friday, he’s prepared for this Masters as much as he’s prepared for any, taking day trips from Florida to play the course and getting here as early as ever this week.
“I’ve been on this golf course so much the last three weeks,” he said. “That’s been a combination of practice and chipping and putting around greens, and then just playing one ball and shooting scores and ending up in weird places that you maybe never find yourself and just trying to figure it out. I think just spending so much time up here has been a big part of it.”
With his round Friday, McIlroy has shifted the conversation firmly to the present and brought history along with him. Yet sitting behind him, some of the best players in the world are ready to try and chase him down even if he’s trying to not think about them.
“That’s not what I want to do,” McIlroy said when asked about intimidating the rest of the field. “Honestly, I don’t care … golf is the most amazing game because it’s you and your golf ball and the golf course and that’s it. You shouldn’t be affected by anyone else.”
Those behind include a player who broke bread with him at the Champions dinner Tuesday night and one he’s battled with in the past in Patrick Reed. The former LIV player is, alongside Sam Burns, six back of McIlroy. Reed, like McIlroy, is looking for a second win here. But while McIlroy can still reach back and touch the emotions that overwhelmed him on the 18th green last year, Reed’s memories of his triumph are not as fresh.
“Since 2018, I have always wanted to put it on a second time,” Reed said of the green jacket. ” I love the position I put myself in.”
The rest of the top 10 features three players inside the top-10 of the world golf rankings, five major winners and plenty of familiar faces. Justin Rose once again will ride into the weekend looking for his second major victory knowing exactly the blueprint necessary to win. He came back last year and nearly stole it from McIlroy in a playoff. Can he also deliver an encore?
“Of course I want to win this tournament. I don’t really need to try any harder,” Rose, who is at 5-under, said Friday. “Tying harder ain’t going to help me. So that’s probably the dance I’m doing with myself. I know the intrinsic motivation is there. It’s about execution.”
With two eagles Friday, Tommy Fleetwood made his own charge at the leaderboard and sits seven back. Despite the round 68 he put together, Fleetwood’s analysis of the weekend upon seeing McIlroy on top was simple and to the point.
“It’s up to him what happens,” Fleetwood said.
What McIlroy’s roller-coaster final round last year showed is two-fold: no lead is big enough for him, or anyone, to feel at ease at Augusta, yet no one had more pressure and expectations on him than he did that afternoon.
That has now dissipated if not left entirely. McIlroy, as he cheekily explained Thursday, can bookend any round here with a stroll up to the Champions locker room where he can let the green jacket and a Coke zero ease him into the rest of the day. It’s a comfort he’s still getting used to, but also a dose of perspective that he’s clearly not allowing to get in the way of his hunger for adding to his major total.
“Over the years my mindset hasn’t been ‘keep swinging.’ It’s been guided, tentative,” said McIlroy. “I think the experience I’ve accrued over the years and obviously with what happened last year, it makes it a bit easier out there to keep swinging.”
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It’s why McIlroy’s advice to himself going into the weekend is simple: Much like last year, this quest isn’t about anyone else but his own battle with his mind and the golf course.
“I think the next two days for me is really about focusing on myself,” said McIlroy. “It’s hard to avoid those big leaderboards out there, but I know that I’ve got a lead. So I don’t need to keep checking it all the time.”
By the time McIlroy crested the hill that led to the 18th green Friday, the patrons on hand who had seen the numbers next to his name on the leaderboard continue to grow, let him hear their adulation.
“He’s hitting all the right shots,” one patron said.
Every step McIlroy took raised the volume. He lifted his putter up in the air and then, a few minutes later, used it to sink his ninth birdie of the day, his sixth in the final seven holes. Before leaving the round behind, he took one final glance toward the most well-known leaderboard on the grounds.
It told McIlroy all he needed to know: he’s got 36 more holes to add to his lore.
