Day won’t be throwing in the towel, despite Rory McIlroy seemingly killing Australia’s Masters hopes in two cold-blooded but electrifying hours.<\/p>\n
Day rolled back the years with a vintage display of scrambling to eke out a gritty one-under 71 to climb to four under for the championship after Friday’s second round.<\/p>\n
But while the former world No.1 is tied for seventh and on track for a sixth top-10 finish at Augusta National, any realistic prospect of finally landing an elusive green jacket appear forlorn.<\/p>\n
With six birdies in his last seven holes, McIlroy surged from one shot in front, after Day birdied the 14th hole, to eight clear of the former PGA Championship winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Day, though, is promising to hang tough in pursuit of a now most improbable triumph.<\/p>\n
“Not many people are obviously talking about me, which is good,” Day said.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“I feel confident in my ability to be able to shoot a good score. I’ve been driving it nice. Been putting myself in the correct positions when I do miss it.<\/p>\n
“So the experience of being here for the last 15 years is definitely helpful.”<\/p>\n
McIlroy will carry a record six-stroke lead over American pair Sam Burns and 2018 champion Patrick Reed into the weekend.<\/p>\n
But Day knows anything can happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The weekend at Augusta is a different beast, obviously,” said the 2011 runner-up.<\/p>\n
“Getting through the cut line and playing good is one thing. Then once you get to the weekend, things open up and scoring gets really tight.<\/p>\n
“Unless someone runs away with it, typically scoring gets tight. So just be patient.”<\/p>\n
While Day is clinging to hope of a miracle comeback, 2013 champion Adam Scott fell 14 shots adrift of McIlroy at two over with a second-round 74.<\/p>\n
While Scott at least made the cut for a 22nd time in 25 attempts, Australian No.1 Min Woo Lee and fallen star Cameron Smith both crashed out of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Smith was too gutted to speak to waiting media after his second-round 77 left him at seven over and three shots short of the cut line.<\/p>\n
In a shocking run, the one-time world No.2 has now missed the cut at the past six majors, but Day said it would be foolish to write him off.<\/p>\n
“Cammy, he’s such a good golfer. The guy won the British Open, won The Players (Championship). He’s an unreal golfer,” Day said.<\/p>\n
“He has a tremendous short game and really good wedge game.<\/p>\n
“So it’s unfortunate this golf course actually should suit him really well, just of how good his game is. He’s a great putter, too.<\/p>\n
“He might be going through a bit of a tough run right now, especially during the majors, but that’s golf. I mean, who knows, he could win the next major and we’re not thinking about it again.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lee was even worse, rounds of 78-77 leaving him at 11 over, with only eight players finishing lower.<\/p>\n
“Making two birdies out here in 36 holes is not going to cut it,” Lee said.<\/p>\n
“Didn’t have my best at all. I don’t know. I mean, the preparation was unbelievable. You would think I would be winning the tournament the way I was playing leading up to the event.<\/p>\n
“Bummed that I couldn’t get anything going.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Day won’t be throwing in the towel, despite Rory McIlroy seemingly killing Australia’s Masters hopes in two cold-blooded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-599818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}