When Rory McIlroy chatted to the great Jack Nicklaus for advice about defending the best way to defend his Masters title, he was given a succinct piece of advice.<\/p>\n
“He told me ‘no double bogeys’,” laughed McIlroy.<\/p>\n
An obvious tip maybe, but it is easier said than done at Augusta National. Just ask the 36-year-old from Northern Ireland, who has opened up a record six-shot lead at the halfway stage thanks to a stunning finish to Friday’s second round.<\/p>\n
On his way to golfing utopia last year, McIlroy carded four double bogeys over the week – a tally which nobody had ever recorded and still managed to don the Green Jacket.<\/p>\n
So far, with McIlroy holding a commanding advantage in his pursuit of a rare back-to-back Masters win, there haven’t been any.<\/p>\n
Instead of costly doubles threatening to derail his progress, there was a flurry of birdies late in a sensational second round which helped McIlroy accelerate away from the chasing pack.<\/p>\n
He converted six in the final seven holes of his second round – including a glorious chip in from 30 yards on the 17th – to finish 12 under following a spell which ranks among the finest of his career.<\/p>\n
The run enabled the five-time major champion to set a record 36-hole lead going into the weekend, with American pair Sam Burns and Patrick Reed closest behind on six under.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always loved the tournament and loved this golf course, even when I felt it didn’t love me back,” said McIlroy, who is bidding to follow Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods as only the fourth player to defend.<\/p>\n
“Now when I miss fairways it’s fine, when I miss greens it’s fine. I feel like I’m playing with the house’s money.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Rory McIlroy chatted to the great Jack Nicklaus for advice about defending the best way to defend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-524322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}