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Another Tough Day at The Masters

A funny thing happened on the way to that mano y mano matchup at The Masters between Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, a U.S. Open broke out.

Augusta National played so very tough again today with gusty winds and firm greens players were shaking their heads all day as they missed fairways, greens and plenty of putts.  Only five players broke par today: Smylie Kaufman (69) who is in second place, Bernhard Langer (70), third place, Jason Day (71) T5, Lee Westwood (71) T8 and Louis Oosthuizen (71) T16. spieth mcilroy

And that leaves only four players under par for the tournament: Spieth, Kaufman, Langer and Hideki Matsuyama.

It was billed as a heavyweight bout of the century with Spieth the world’s number two golfer versus McIlroy the number three. But as we see far too often in cases like this the hype failed to meet the expectations.

McIlroy struggled all day (75) and while Spieth (73) showed moments of his brilliance that has him defending his Masters title he also stumbled quite often. And none more critical than his final two holes where he went bogey, double bogey to go from a four shot lead to a meager one stroke lead.

When Spieth and McIlroy butchered the eleventh hole with a pair of matching double bogeys McIlroy was able to steady his ship with a string of seven pars. No more real pain but no big charge either.

Spieth on the other hand literally talked himself into a surge that saw him birdie three of the next four holes. We have seen this from him before, such a determined and positive comeback after some loose play. But it was not to last.

Wayward drives on seventeen and eighteen cost Spieth a possible coronation on Sunday and brought so many golfers back into the mix. So while we didn’t get the steel cage match we had envisioned tomorrow has turned into a Battle Royale with fourteen golfers within six shots of the lead.

Spieth and his team will be doing all they can before his 2:45pm tee time to find his Masters winning game. One thing is for sure in a Battle Royale, the winner has to take on all comers. And Jordan Spieth will definitely be ready.

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