Winds keep golfers on edge in second Masters round

There was a fine line Friday at Augusta National Golf Club. A fine line between birdie or bogey. A fine line between remaining in contention for the green jacket and surviving the 36-hole cut. A fine line between feeling confident in the direction of the gusting wind or being fooled yet again.

Rory McIlroy posted 71, shooting under par for the second consecutive day. He and playing companion Adam Scott shared a laugh walking up the 18th fairway, feeling they’d been downwind on the past six or seven holes even though the holes face in different directions.

“The angles of the holes are all over the place. It's just the way the wind funnels up and down these fairways with the big, tall trees,” McIlroy said. “But if there's a tiny variance in the wind either way; so say the wind is straight left, right, and there's a tiny variance into or a tiny variance down, that's a massive difference. That's a 20‑yard difference.”

PHOTOS: Second round at the Masters Tournament

Which is how he ended up 25 yards over the 15th green in two shots.

Phil Mickelson spent most of his day on the wrong side of every line, finding the bushes on No. 9 on the way to a triple-bogey 7 and spent the afternoon hovering near the cut line and trying to explain a 7-over 79.

The 47-year-old three-time Masters champion discussed the disappointment of missing a chance to add another green jacket in this, the autumn of his career.

“There’s a fine line between wanting it so bad and then also letting it kind of happen,” Mickelson said. “As you get older you feel a little bit more pressure each one because you don't feel as though you have unlimited number of events.”

Mickelson praised the course setup, saying he felt a good score was available. Still, it’s not as if Augusta National was a pushover. It allowed only seven rounds in the 60s and the top three players in the world each produced one, including No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who recorded a brilliant bogey-free 68.

Tricky, swirling winds kept the competitors on a path of caution.

Kevin Kisner hit what he thought was a perfect 4-iron from 230 yards out on No. 11. From his perch atop the hill in the fairway, he felt the wind was blowing from left to right. When he reached the green, he realized it was blowing the opposite direction. The gust dumped his ball into the water hazard, leading to a double bogey as Amen Corner claimed yet another victim. With the hole location nestled near the pond, No. 11 was the most difficult at Augusta National in the second round, allowing only three birdies while producing 11 double bogeys and a 4.563 stroke average.

Matt Kuchar, who teed off at 10:31 a.m. and scuffled to a 75 to fall to 1-under, described the wind as “very, very tough.”

“It's tough from the get‑go. It was never comfortable. I think this place keeps you on edge because of the fact that on almost every shot that line between birdie and bogey is so fine,” said Kuchar, who hit only eight greens in regulation and three-putted twice.

“You either have to be sharp or you really have to be clean, and with these conditions if you're not sharp I felt like I was doing a whole lot of scrambling, and for the most part I was getting away with scrambling pretty well today.”

Jordan Spieth rebounded from a horrendous start to remain in the hunt. After blistering the course with an opening 66, he too experienced the dark side of the fine line in Round 2.

“I felt like I hit some really good shots on a lot of holes and just got kind of gusted by an opposite wind, or were one or two yards away from being phenomenal,” Spieth said after finishing 36 holes at 4-under. “Therefore, I didn't have very many really good birdie looks. I only had, you know, less than half a dozen, four or five decent birdie looks the entire round.”