Most people would call into work sick when they have been up all night with a bug.<\/p>\n
Most people, though, don’t play the Masters as part of their career.<\/p>\n
China’s Li Haotong feared he would not be able to compete at Augusta National on Friday after spending the morning “living in the toilet” because of illness.<\/p>\n
But the resilience he showed to power through and finish his second round was rewarded with a three-under par 69 which – before Rory McIlroy tightened his grip on the contest – propelled him into contention for the Green Jacket.<\/p>\n
Li, 30, thought he would only manage to play a few holes before having to quit, but was able to complete all 18 and ended up four under par, two shots behind then clubhouse leader Sam Burns.<\/p>\n
Asked if he was surprised at how well he played considering his physical condition, Li said: “I am, actually. Especially [because I went] to the toilet last night a lot of times.<\/p>\n
“This morning when I got to the golf course [I was] still feeling really bad and kind of living in the toilet.”<\/p>\n
Li, who shot a one-under 71 on Thursday, started with a birdie on the first before bogeys on four and seven put him one over at the turn.<\/p>\n
However, he settled down on the back nine and landed four successive birdies on 13, 14, 15 and 16 to push high up the leaderboard going into the weekend.<\/p>\n
Never mind glugging water and taking medication, it turns out sinking birdie putts is the best cure for sickness.<\/p>\n
Li, who is making his first Masters appearance since 2019, joked the flurry left him “feeling good” again.<\/p>\n
On his disrupted build-up, he added: “I didn’t hit many balls on the driving range. I was feeling really, really bad. No energy, fuzzy, want to throw up something.<\/p>\n
“I actually just planned to play a few holes, see how it goes. If really sick, then I probably just decide not to. I’m glad I survived today.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people would call into work sick when they have been up all night with a bug. Most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-524445","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\/524445","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=524445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}