Scheffler, DeChambeau, Homa share Masters lead; Woods seven shots back
Augusta, Ga. — Max Homa played the most beautifully boring round of golf amid raging wind and endless calamity Friday in the Masters, giving him a share of the lead with Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau going into a weekend for the survivors.
Homa made 15 pars – they all felt so much better than that – for a 1-under 71.
Scheffler finally made his first bogey of the Masters and then a few more, but he was rock solid down the stretch for a 72, his highest score of the year. DeChambeau played the 13th hole from the 14th fairway – at one point hoisting a wooden directional sign over his shoulder as he plotted his move – and finished with a 73.
For some 12 hours, the wind roared through the pines, scattered magnolia leaves across pristine Augusta National, and blew sand out of the white bunkers and into the faces of the players as they tried to handle a beast of a course.
“Mostly what I was trying to do out there was make a bunch of pars and stay in the golf tournament,” Scheffler said, a testament to just how difficult it was.
The 60 players who made the cut at 6-over 150 are expected to get a slight reprieve, though still plenty of wind. And that weekend will include Tiger Woods.
Woods set a Masters record by making the cut for the 24th consecutive time. He had to play 23 holes – five in the morning to finish the weather-delayed first round, and then a second round in which he kept the ball in play and posted an even-par 72.
He was only seven shots behind and still very much in the tournament.
“I’m here. I have a chance to win the golf tournament,” Woods said. “I got my two rounds in.”
That's really what it was all about – finishing, surviving.
“That was about as happy as you could be to be off of a golf course,” Homa said. “That was so hard. We got the sand shower to end our day. So it was kind of the golf course saying, ‘Get the hell out of here.’”
The average score was 75.09. Only eight players broke par, the same number of players who shot 80 or higher. Ludvig Aberg had the low round at 69.
“I've never experienced anything like this before,” DeChambeau said. “But what a great test.”
Homa heard some of the loudest cheers, even if they weren't for him. He spent two days with Woods, and caught the full experience of largest galleries, all of them rising to their feet when Woods approached tee boxes, or the 15th green that he managed to reach in two.
“The memories will just be a lot of the Tiger stuff,” Homa said. “I hope to build my own come this weekend, but I fortunately think I've done a good enough job of playing it one shot at a time that I can't really remember a ton of the round at the moment. I played really well, and I tried to play as boring as possible.
“I think just the view of this beautiful golf course with the sea of fans, it will be seared in my brain for a while.”
The leaders were at 6-under 138, two shots clear of Masters newcomer Nicolai Hojgaard of Denmark, who shot a 73. Two-time major champion Collin Morikawa, one of only two fortunate souls to break par each of the first two rounds, had a 70 and was three behind.
Justin Thomas will have far worse memories. He was even par for the tournament on the par-5 15th hole, very much in the tournament. He hit iron to lay up and it raced along the turf and into the pond. That was the start of a double bogey-double bogey-bogey-double bogey finish. He shot 79 and missed the cut by one shot.
Defending champion Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy looked as though they might join him, but that was before the cut line began to move.
Rahm made a late charge for a 76, leaving him 11 shots out of the lead. McIlroy, missing only the Masters for the career Grand Slam, didn't make a birdie for only the third time in his 56 trips around Augusta National. He shot 77 and was 10 shots back.
Homa has some experience of the grandest of stages, playing with Woods during his final British Open at St. Andrews. He was far more comfortable with Woods at Augusta National, and his game was a big part of it. Homa picked up two early birdies, one of them on the par-3 fourth when he had to hit 7-wood.
His lone bogey was on the 11th, the hardest hole at Augusta National, and he buckled down against the most extreme conditions.
DeChambeau was the only player to reach 8 under at any point with his birdie on the 13th hole that was quite the expedition. He drove right into the pines and didn't see a clear route back to the fairway – not the 13th fairway, anyway.
So he looked to the right toward the 14th hole, even removing the sign post that he briefly carried over his shoulder – “It was probably 30 pounds, not too bad,” he said – and left himself 145 yards over the tributary to Rae's Creek to a back right pin.
“The patrons were nice enough to move over to the side to make sure it was wide enough so if I hit an errant one, nobody would get hit by the ball,” he said. “I hit a great great shot around the corner and was able to take advantage of a pretty open entrance to the green.”
He hit it to about 15 feet for birdie and dropped two shots coming in. In those conditions, that was acceptable.
The wind was so fierce that players thought it might be called, with balls oscillating and gusts arriving without notice. As it was, the rounds took nearly six hours to play.
Scheffler hit driver and 3-iron onto the 15th green on Thursday, and driver and 3-iron just to lay up on the 15th on Friday.
“It can be three clubs different, depending on what time you hit it,” Harris English said. “Ten to 20 seconds later or earlier, it can be a totally different shot.”
Among those making the cut were three Masters champions – 58-year-old Jose Maria Olazabal, 61-year-old Vijay Singh and 53-year-old Phil Mickelson – who have combined to play the Masters 97 times.
Woods sets Masters record
Augusta, Ga. — A howling gust — the kind that created havoc at Augusta National all day long — struck the 18th green just as Tiger Woods was lining up yet another testy putt. Fine particles of sand stirred from the pearl-white bunkers, whipping across the slick green surface.
One caddie’s hat was blown off. Woods turned away quickly, avoiding a potentially painful assault on his eyes.
Not to worry.
It was just a windy respite on the way to another bit of Masters history Friday.
When the breeze subsided just enough to look again, Woods rolled in a 5-foot putt to cap an even-par 72 that ensured he would make the cut for a record 24th time in a row.
Of course, his sights were fixated on a far greater goal — a record-tying sixth green jacket.
Woods broke the cut record he shared with three-time champion Gary Player, who advanced to the weekend 23 straight times beginning in 1959, and 1992 winner Fred Couples, whose own streak lasted until 2007.
“It means I have a chance going into the weekend,” said Woods, who was at 1-over 145 through 36 holes. “I’m here. I have a chance to win the golf tournament. I don’t know if they’re all going to finish today, but I’m done. I got my two rounds in. Just need some food and some caffeine, and I’ll be good to go.”
It was a grueling day for the five-time Masters champion, even more so considering the 48-year-old has endured numerous injuries, countless surgeries and a devastating car wreck that nearly cost him his right leg.
Woods was back at the course before sunrise to finish up the final five holes of his opening round, which was cut short by darkness after storms Thursday morning delayed the start of the tournament by 2½ hours.
He made a couple of bogeys to complete a 73, then had less than an hour to rest up for another 18 holes.
Remarkably, he played just one less hole Friday than his competitive total through the first three months of the year, his patched-up body no longer capable to handling a regular schedule of events.
Even with such limited preparation, there's something about Augusta National that always brings out the best in Woods.
“Yeah, I’m tired. I’ve been out for a while, competing, grinding. It’s been a long 23 holes, a long day,” he conceded. “But Lance (Bennett, his caddie) and I really did some good fighting today, and we’ve got a chance.”
With the crowd around the 18th green roaring like it was a Sunday, Woods' steely demeanor morphed into a huge smile as soon as the round was done. He hugged playing partner Jason Day, and gave another big squeeze to Bennett before a triumphant stroll to the clubhouse, the patrons lining the ropes four and five deep to applaud his effort.
“It was awesome,” said Max Homa, who rounded out the threesome with Woods and Day. “It really is a dream to get to play with him here. I’ve been saying, I always wanted to just watch him hit iron shots around here, and I was right up next to him. It was really cool. His short game was so good. I don’t think I can explain how good some of the chip shots he hit today were.”
Homa was in the thick of contention, just one shot off the lead when he finished, but he was glad to cede the spotlight to Woods.
“He’s special,” Homa said. “We had a really quick turnaround, and if I was feeling tired and awful, I imagine he was feeling even worse.”
Homa was impressed as much as anything by the way Woods maintained his cool on the 18th green when the sand went flying in gusts approaching 40 mph for the second day in a row.
“We had sandblasts for 45 seconds, and I turned around five times so I didn’t get crushed in the face, and he’s standing there like a statue and then poured it right in the middle,” Homa said. “All the cliches you hear about him and all the old stories about how he will grind it out, it was fun to see that in person.”
Indeed, Woods had to do all sorts of scrambling to compensate for one wayward approach shot after another.
But he kept pulling off nifty chips and clutch putts to keep his score safely above the cut line, which was projected at 4 over when he finished his round.
“I was forced to get up-and-down a few times today, and I was able to do that,” Woods said. “A lot of those chip shots I was able to get up-and-down because I left it in the perfect spot, and that’s understanding how to play this golf course. … Most of the up-and-downs I was in a perfect spot.”
Woods went through a stretch of six straight hole s before the turn where he made nothing but birdies or bogeys, but he settled things a bit on the back nine with a single bogey at the 14th — where his approach from 150 yards sailed into the gallery behind the green — and a two-putt birdie at the par-5 15th after clearing the pond with two booming shots.
Woods headed into the weekend likely to face a daunting deficit, with 2022 champion Scottie Scheffler setting the pace at 7 under with seven holes still to play.
But Woods, of course, still thinks he has a chance to equal Jack Nicklaus' record of Masters titles.
“I’m right there,” he said. “I don’t think anyone is going to run off and hide right now, but it’s really bunched. The way the ball is moving on the greens, chip shots are being blown, it’s all you want in a golf course.”