AUGUSTA, Ga. – Of the many people who spent the first two days of the Masters watching Rory McIlroy with the silent awe of a tourist teetering on the edge of the Grand Canyon, perhaps no one was more upset than Mason Howell.
The 18-year-old has been looking forward to watching McIlroy at Augusta National on Thursday and Friday for months. When the excitement started in the first box, he was so excited that he lost control of his limbs for a short time.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say I was nervous going into it, but I was when I got to the first tee yesterday,” Howell said with a laugh Friday afternoon. “I couldn’t feel my arms and I hit it nine ways.”
If you haven’t pieced it together yet, Howell wasn’t just a witness McIlroy’s Hole during the first two days at Augusta National — he was the victim of crime, competing in McIlroy’s group thanks to his status as the reigning US Amateur winner. The 18-year-old Howell admitted Friday afternoon that he began thinking about the potential of playing alongside McIlroy — honoring a long club tradition that paired the reigning US Amateur winner and the reigning green jacket winner — before he was crowned champion (after the semifinal match, to be exact).
And what did Mason Howell see in his wide-eyed youth?
Just the most dominant opening 36-hole performance in Masters history.
McIlroy has endured many fine golf courses at Augusta National, but few have risen to the level of no-nonsense the 35-year-old displayed on Friday afternoon, when he bogeyed six of his last seven holes to move six shots clear of the field, the largest halfway lead in Masters history.
Over the first two days at this Masters, the reigning green jacket winner (12 under) defeated the reigning US amateur (nine over) by 21 strokes. He beat his old rival, Bryson DeChambeau, by 18. And he beat everyone else so badly that only 16 players are in ten shots as the sun sets Friday evening at Augusta National.
In general, outbursts like this are not good for intrigue. But by and large, the players making the shots are not Rory McIlroy playing in his first start at Augusta National since conquering his demons in major sport-changing fashion 12 months ago.
In a strange way, McIlroy’s lead makes the weekend’s story at Augusta National both endlessly fascinating and impressively simple. The week began with a limitless range of results, but the weekend will begin with two: Either McIlroy purged all the trauma of the Masters last year only to spend the next Masters tearing the field limb from limb, or he purged all his Masters trauma only to discover a new, scarier kind of it.
If you want to believe that we are on the verge of a historic explosion, there is plenty of evidence on your side. For one thing, Masters history is littered with examples of greats who seemed to get better with age at Augusta National. Phil Mickelson, just short of his second Masters since the turn of the century, is perhaps the closest historical analogue – he won two more green jackets after winning the first major championship of his first trip in 2004, and seemed to thrive on the course after finally knocking the door down. But he’s not just an example: Jack Nicklaus (who won at age 46 in 1986) and Tiger Woods (who won at age 44 in 2019) are also testaments to the idea that age comes before beauty on the Augusta green.
Rory or:
– cleaned up all of his master’s trauma and will spend this weekend tearing it all limb from limb
OR
– cleared all of his masters trauma and will spend this weekend developing a whole new kind of trauma
however a sick result
— James Colgan (@jamescolgan26) April 10, 2026
Of course, none of those golfers had a six-shot lead going into Saturday morning, which would only seem to further McIlroy’s case. As is the fact that McIlroy is not playing well at all. He lucked into some big birdies Friday afternoon, including the 13th hole, when an errant drive left a window to survive unscathed for the second day in a row, resulting in a birdie.
In other words, if he really lights it up for the weekend, there’s reason to believe the current margin could grow even more lopsided – as McIlroy admitted on Friday afternoon, when he suggested his finish probably wasn’t all that impressive to his amateur playing partner.
“Hopefully (Howell) realized you don’t have to be perfect to score low,” McIlroy said. “Hopefully he saw someone who wasn’t perfect but was very efficient with the way he scored.”
But before you go ahead and crown him on Friday night, it’s probably worth mentioning others the result. McIlroy is no stranger to Masters trauma — you may remember that his scar tissue at Augusta National was a significant part of the story when he finally clutched the green jacket for the first time last spring — and blowing a six-shot lead would represent trauma of a whole new kind, even for the golfer who has it all.
Even for the optimist it is not difficult to point out that there is one LOT golf still to be played. Thirty-six holes with a lead is a lifetime for any golfer, even Rory McIlroy, and the lead seems to do strange things to the players who hold it. You may recall that a four-shot lead — with just nine holes to go — remains the second-most remarkable finish in McIlroy’s Masters history, even if it happened a lifetime ago, in 2011.
But forget a total collapse – it’s not too far-fetched to imagine a world in which McIlroy’s lead slips from six to three on a crowded day of Masters action. Few would bat an eye at such a development, and yet it would completely reorient the way McIlroy approached the final round at Augusta National. Is a three-shot comeback Sunday at the Masters that wild? McIlroy himself witnessed the disappearance of the lead a year ago!
“Yeah, I’ll probably try to keep my mind off that,” McIlroy said Friday. “That distraction is usually a good thing for me, especially with a late tee time and a lead.”
A small deviation IS well, because whether McIlroy likes it or not, he has once again become the story of the week at the Masters. From many results we are down to two – and even McIlroy’s competitors are taking their bets.
“He’s got a six-shot lead, I think. So that’s crazy,” Howell said Friday night, as patrons (and maybe some of the players) were still buzzing from McIlroy’s 65.
“I mean, now he’s got all the weight off his shoulders. He’s playing so carefree and I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t do it this weekend.”
