Rory McIlroy produced one of the most memorable Friday afternoons in Masters history to take a huge step towards claiming a second straight green jacket.
The career grand slam winner leads by six shots at the halfway mark at Augusta National, the biggest ever buffer after 36 holes.
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McIlroy’s stripe show undoubtedly captured the spotlight, but there was plenty more talking points to emerge from the second round.
On the Australian front, Jason Day remains among the chasing pack hoping to run down McIlroy across the weekend.
While countryman Min Woo Lee and Cameron Smith collapsed to miss the cut for a second straight year and raise major concerns about their games.
They were not the only big names to not crack the top 50.
Bryson DeChambeau spectacularly made a triple bogey at the last to fall outside the cut line, but the carnage golf fans was promised was kept to a minimum.
After players predicted chaos as the greens became firmer and faster in warm, dry weather, tournament organisers decided to go in a different direction.
That choice raised eyebrows as did world No.1 Scottie Scheffler’s day.
He is not out of the tournament, but made some very uncharacteristic blunders in the second round.
Scroll down for the biggest talking points from the second round of the 2026 Masters!
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DOES RORY HAVE IT IN THE BAG?
Fred Couples joked that Rory McIlroy might “never lose this thing again” after shaking the monkey from his back last year.
1992 champion Couples doubled down on that claim after the second round, and even proclaimed that McIlroy could win five of these.
If he keeps playing anywhere near the level he has displayed in the first two rounds, Couples might be right.
The defending champion delivered one of the most stunning finishes in major golf history, making birdies on six of Friday’s last seven holes to seize a record six-shot lead after 36 holes.
Now, the challenge for McIlroy is to hold on.
A year ago, that would have been a far bigger challenge than it is now.
McIlroy banished his Augusta demons by finally claiming a green jacket 12 months ago and becoming the sixth man to ever win the career grand slam.
The heartbreaks of year’s past are still in the back of the Northern Irishman’s mind.
Post-round, he stressed the need to stay patient across the weekend.
Saying that he knows better than anyone that things can go pear-shaped quickly at Augusta National.
McIlroy shared before the round that the great Jack Nicklaus offered him the simple advice of “don’t make f***ing double bogeys”.
McIlroy set a record last year by becoming the first player to make four double bogeys for the tournament and still win the green jacket.
He continues to defy the odds around the famous layout.
The 36-year-old renowned as one of the longest bombers in the game has somehow missed every fairway on the par 5s across the opening two rounds, but played those eight holes in seven-under par.
Victory last year gave McIlroy a new lease on life and the faults are not impacting as much as they have in the past.
He said post-round that it feel he is now playing with “the house’s money” because of his new found sense of freedom.
“I’ve always loved this tournament, I’ve always loved this golf course, even when I felt like it didn’t love me back,” McIlroy told Sky Sports.
“It’s such a pleasure to be here. It’s a unique tournament, there’s nothing else like this that we play. And I so desperately wanted to win here just so I could come back each and every year, and thankfully I was able to do that last year.
“So, doing that, when I miss fairways, it’s fine. When I miss greens, it’s fine. I feel like I’m sort of playing with the house’s money, which is a nice feeling to have.”
The intensity and scrutiny will no doubt dial up in the coming days.
McIlroy has made clear in recent years that his interest in the week-to-week grind of the PGA Tour has waned.
He is instead all-in on the game’s biggest events.
After accomplishing his goal of being part of a European team that won the Ryder Cup in the United States last September, McIlroy had been relatively quiet.
He did not play for three weeks leading into his Augusta return.
The Players Championship was his last outing as McIlroy battled a back niggle that forced him to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer Invitational last month.
But he also admitted in his press conference that he does not love the three events that lead-in to the Masters.
Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley’s past comments about McIlroy have never rung more true, acclaimed golf journalist Alan Shipnuck pointed out on social media.
“When his heart is engaged in something, and it really means something to him, he generally delivers,” the Irishman said.
“And then he goes into these flat periods in his career—he’s had lots of them. It’s an Irish thing to be melancholy, and he goes into these periods of melancholy, but it’s not that he’s not caring—it’s almost like he’s in a slumber.
“And then, all of a sudden, he ignites.
“And when that heart goes on fire, that’s when he comes out and does something that amazes us.
“If he has that quiet look of determination combined with that joyfulness of chasing a goal, that’s when the magic happens.”
CAN DAY WIN THIS?
He essentially needs to rely on a spectacular Rory McIlroy collapse, but Jason Day firmly believes he is right in the green jacket hunt.
The Australian stumbled at the final hole of his second round, making bogey to fall back to 4-under par.
The former world No.1 is eight shots back from McIlroy, but having come so close in the past, Day knows wild things can happen in the final 36 holes at Augusta National.
Day finished tied for eighth last year and is also a former runner-up, while he was in the hunt until the end when compatriot Adam Scott broke the nation’s drought in 2013.
He knows this course better than most and crucially is well versed in limiting mistakes.
Day has made three bogeys across the opening two rounds, only Patrick Reed (-6) has made less so far.
The Queenslander also went 35 holes without dropping a shot last year.
He knows his consistency can pay off.
“I think if I can just keep myself within arm’s length of the lead just never know what happens out here at Augusta, especially on the weekend,” Day said before McIlroy went on his late tear.
“But more so on Sunday. Things can happen and turn pretty quick on a dime just with how scorable some of the holes can be, and obviously with the dramatic finish we have typically.
“I’m just going to go under the radar and do my thing. I felt like it’s been a pretty good formula so far over the last few days, what I’ve done.”
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WHAT HAPPENED TO SMITH AND LEE?
Far more concerning for Australians are the plights of Min Woo Lee and Cameron Smith.
For the second straight year, they both missed the cut.
Lee’s rounds of 78 and 77 came completely of the blue.
The top-ranked Australian at No.25 in the world finished in a share of third a week ago at the Houston Open – an event he won the year prior.
Plus, he was also runner-up at Pebble Beach and boasted another top ten at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The 27-year-old was in some of the best form of his career, having risen 22 places in the world rankings since the start of the year.
With his game seemingly in good order, Lee could not quite put his finger on where it all went wrong at Augusta.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, the preparation was unbelievable. You would think I would be winning the tournament the way I was leading up to the event,” he said.
“It’s not like I was nervous or anything. I just kept hitting the same shot which was weird.
“Yeah, it’s … very disappointing. I thought I had great preparation and good momentum coming into this tournament. Had a lot of people supporting me to play well. Yeah, a little bummed that I couldn’t get anything going.”
Smith, on the other hand, was a little more predictable as he endures the worst stretch of his career.
The 2022 Open champion has now missed the cut in his last six majors.
He was the only player to fail to reach the weekend in all four majors in 2025.
With the clock ticking on his five-year exemption from that St Andrews triumph, alarm bells are ringing for the LIV Golf star.
He looked to have turned the corner despite heartbreak at the final hole of December’s Australian Open.
Smith’s three-putt bogey at the last at Royal Melbourne handed the national crown to Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who also missed the cut at Augusta having earned his place in the field with that win.
But he was back-to-back his best despite that blunder.
There is still something missing from his game, however.
Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley put it bluntly when discussing Smith’s struggles.
“It’s a shame. He promised so much when he won at TPC (Sawgrass in The Players in 2022) as well as The Open Championship,” he said on Live From The Masters.
“But, you know, he’s not now a factor at these majors.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CARNAGE?
After the first round Shane Lowry said this might be the most difficult Masters in recent memory.
Jason Day shared his belief that the winning number would likely be in single digits.
With a clear weather forecast and temperatures in the mid to high 20s, a firm and fast Augusta National was supposed to cause carnage.
While, of course, the famous venue is still incredibly difficult for the world’s best to navigate, it could have been torturous.
But tournament organisers blinked.
Sky Sports captured greenkeepers with their hoses out on Friday morning.
The rock hard greens were hard to hit in the opening round as balls bounced and rocketed forward.
No disrespect to Tyrell Hatton, but after battling Melbourne Sandbelt-like conditions, no one in the field would have expected someone to hit all 18 greens in regulation in the second round.
Masters debutant Andrew Novak was the first player to voice their surprise at the change-up post-round.
“I three-putted four times early because I wasn’t prepared at all for how slow the greens were,” Novak said following his second round 76.
“Just on the putting green and stuff they were still rolling fast. I didn’t realise how much slower they were going to be this morning.”
When asked if he thought the greens had been watered, Novak simply replied: “Yeah”.
Paul McGinley said on Live from The Masters that he was surprised to see players in the morning groups making pitch marks on the greens.
While world No.1 Scottie Scheffler admitted he was caught off guard by the decision to soften the putting surfaces.
“I was surprised at the greens,” Scheffler said. “I think they may have saw how difficult it was late in the day yesterday. It felt like they softened them up a bit, but I couldn’t imagine them doing that the rest of the weekend.”
Other players who missed the cut, and many of those who did scrap their way into the weekend, would likely say that they needed to be thrown a bone to battle the challenging conditions.
But there was a clear excitement among golf fans to witness a rare type of Masters.
Scoring never gets out of hand at Augusta National like it can at an average PGA Tour or LIV event, but seeing the winner score be in single figures for the first time in almost decade was an appetising thought to many golf fans.
That still might be the case if the hoses stay in the shed and things get tougher on the weekend.
WHAT HAPPENED TO SCOTTIE?
Scottie Scheffler sank down the leaderboard, twice splashing into the water on a difficult day, but insisted he played much better than his score suggested.
The four-time major champion, seeking his third Masters crown in five seasons, struggled to a two-over par 74 in Friday’s second round.
It was his second-worst score in 26 rounds at Augusta National, leaving him even par at the tournament’s midway point.
“Was really challenging. I played really pretty well. I felt like I played a lot better than my score,” Scheffler said.
“Just the little things that I felt like I was close to having a really good round. Just a few things here or there, a few breaks that didn’t go my way. Yeah, the margins are small.” Scheffler’s round snapped the third-longest streak in Masters history of rounds at par or below at 11, his run eclipsed only by the record 16 of Tiger Woods and 15 by Jon Rahm.
Scheffler stumbled early with bogeys at the par-three fourth and par-four fifth holes but responded with birdies at the par-five eighth and par-four 10th.
The big heartbreak came with bogeys at the par-five 13th and 15th holes. Scheffler plunked his second shot at 13 into Rae’s Creek and found water again at 15.
“I got off to a slow start. A few up and downs early that I should have had that I didn’t convert. Then I fought back to get it to even,” Scheffler said.
“And then the fairway on 13, probably my only shot I would rather be able to hit again. Maybe a different decision there. That’s a tough shot, but I felt like I could make something happen to that pin.”
His 3-iron missed badly.
“I just didn’t draw it enough,” Scheffler said. “I just tried to swing it with the slope and just didn’t catch it that solid and kind of hung out there.
“It was frustrating to get it back to even, have a couple of par-fives in front of me, and then not do many things I felt wrong and wasn’t able to convert really basically anything coming down the stretch.”
Scheffler also struggled on the greens.
“I would like to hole a few more putts. I felt like it was rolling nice but balls just weren’t dropping,” he said.
“Maybe my reads were a little bit off. I felt like I was starting on line, could have been speed on a couple of putts, but overall I felt like I definitely played better than my score.”
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