Graeme Agars: Golf Correspondent on Rory McIlroy taking a six shot lead at the Masters

Rory McIlroy has opened up a huge lead at the Masters – a stunning six shots to the good at the halfway mark. 

The defending champion has birdied six of his last seven holes with a seven-under 65 for the day to be 12-under overall. 

Golf Correspondent Graeme Agars told Piney that if McIlroy continues to play with this aggressive, devil may care attitude, he can’t see anyone beating him. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's been a good line. That was his chippin off
the green. On seventeen, McElroy birdied six of his last
seven holes to cut a seven under sixty five for
the day, twelve under overall, He's a stunning six shots
ahead of the chasing pack at the halfway mark. As

(00:33):
I mentioned, the biggest thirty six hole lead in the
history of the Masters. Gray may Gars watched on at
Augusta and joins us now Grahmer. Took all that time
for Rory to win at Augusta. He did that last
year and now he's in pole position to go back
to back. Do you just need to win one Green
jacket and then you win a few of them?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
The question I was asking myself on the way home
was what was that? I mean, all the experts and
I won't claim to be one, said after Rory got
his Rand Slam done last year and did it, you
know in an absolute drama feeled way, he was going
to do one of two things. He was either going

(01:15):
to lose interest in golf and just kind of play
around the place for fun, or the burden has been
lifted from his shoulders and he's just going to have
at it. Well, he's just going to have at it.
And today he said, and I think this was significant.
I always knew that I could get on a run
at Augusta National, but I stopped myself and he said

(01:39):
today and yesterday, I just kept saying to myself, keep swinging,
don't try to start steering it, don't try to play conservatively,
don't try to prevent a bogie. Just go for it.
And he birdied six of the last seven holes, a
chipping on seventeen, the most spectacular thing. He made birdies

(02:01):
out of trees. He made birdies out of all sorts
of places. And in the end, as he's said, six
shot lead, that's the biggest thirty six hole lead in
the Mastards. And he's got the rest of the guys
playing for second already and we're only halfway through the tournament.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Incredible stuff. So six shots that's too much, isn't it
for the field to claw back?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Well, the one thing I would say is this is
going to be the first Masters in maybe fifteen years
where there's not been any weather interruptions, and they won't
be if the forecast holds up at the weekend, which
means that guss It can set that course up any
way they want. And generally if you let them do that,
excuse me, they make it firm, they make it fast,

(02:46):
and they make the greens treacherous. Now, if you do that,
even if you're Rory McElroy, you can get yourself into trouble.
So it is possible that he could make a slow
start and come back a couple of shots and a
guy Gota like Patrick lead Sam Burns. Could you pick
up a couple of early birdies and suddenly a six
shot lead is now down to two or three, and

(03:09):
now we've got a tournament again. But if Rory keeps
playing with this aggressive devil may care, I'm not going
to worry about the outcome. I'm just going to go
for it. I can't see anybody beating him.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Last year he was tied for third after two rounds
and took the lead after the third round. And then,
of course, more than that playoff, how different a proposition
is it playing from so far in front.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well, the one thing I would say is at the
start of his career, when he started winning majors, he
won big, so he's not frightened of doing it, and
in his current state of mind, he knows his legacy
in the game is secure no matter what happens, So
everything from now on is just cream on top of

(03:57):
the cake. And that's the way he's approaching it. So tomorrow,
I think he's going to take exactly the same mindset.
Both rounds that he's played this year, he was kind
of shaky at the start, and normally, he said that
would have put him back in his shell and he
would have played more protectively, trying to avoid embarrassment instead

(04:18):
of making birdies. So I think the next two days
he's just going to have at it, and there's nobody
better in the game to watch, probably since Sevibosteros that
when they're free wheeling and just using all their talents,
there's nobody better in the game to watch. It's just phenomenal.
His rhythm is beautiful, his shot shape is amazing. He

(04:42):
can make the door of the ball do whatever he wants.
And when he's confidence is up, he's a phenomenal putterer.
He makes him from all over the place. So you know,
we're seeing Rory at his absolute best, and I would
like him to continue. But I would love somebody to
come out of the pack and make it go of
it on the final day, just put some pressure up.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I guess at the moment Patrick reads the most
likely handed it to do that, isn't He tied for
sick and six under six shots back we as we know,
he won the Masters in twenty eighteen, so he's had
success here before. Does he feel like the most likely challenger?

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Well, he's a man on a mission. He left the
PGA too and went to live and that rubbed a
lot of people up the wrong way. And as you
know Patrick himself, he is not the most amiable character.
He gets himself into trouble with rulings. He was suing
everybody in golf and including his fellow PGA members when

(05:42):
he left lives. So he's a character, let's put it
that way. And my favorite golf writer, Amon Lynch described
him this way. He said, my favorite pub, this is
Amen Lynch. My favorite pub in the Ireland has a
message across the front door. It says everybody who passes

(06:03):
through this door brings joy when they come in and
some when they go out. And that's his description of
Patrick Reid. Now I will say this guy has had
the courage to leave live when his contract was up,
eat some humble pie, and he's going to work his

(06:24):
way back onto the PGA Tour. But in the meantime,
he's going to prove himself as a competitive world golfer.
And he's playing the European Tour. He won two of
his first three events, and his goal is to win
the European Tour Championship in the Middle East at the
end of the year and then earn his way back
onto the PGA Tour. So this guy is on a mission.

(06:49):
And when he wants to play golf, and he plays tons,
he will play twenty six twenty seven weeks a year regularly.
He is phenomenal. He's strong, he's got all sorts of
shots in his bag. He can go left, go right,
go high, go low, and he's an excellent putter under pressure.
So I think he's the guy will step up because

(07:12):
this means this means more to him than perhaps even
Rory to win this championship again.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'll tell you what, Grahame, You've got to scroll a
long way down to find the world number one, Scotty
Scheffler down there at even par twelve shots back from McElroy.
What's been the story of Scotty Schiffler's first two rounds.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, so, first of all, he's proving his human He's
just had the birth of his second son, Remy, so
he's been distracted. He hasn't played a lot of tournament golf,
and he's just not playing well at the moment. He
seems to have the lefts a lot, which he had
midway through last year and menor when he corrected it
to finish up winning the PJA Championship, and we all thought, well,

(07:57):
he's back on track again. But I've always thought that
if you look at his swing, it's not picture perfect,
and he's feet out of control when he swings. He's
one of the few golfers like Greg Norman and Johnny Millett,
their feet's going or their feet are going all over
the place at the point of impact. And because he

(08:19):
has amazing hand eye coordination and because he's very strong,
he can get away with that. But if you watch him,
compared to ninety nine percent of the PGA Tour players players,
he does not have a stable base when he's playing.
And I've always thought that if your hand eye goes
off a little bit, or you've got a little niggling
injury or something like that, your game can go away

(08:43):
pretty quickly. We all know that he's struggled with he's
putting two years ago, but he rectified that with a
new putter and a new putting style. So you can
bet he's working on the problems he's got now. But
at the moment you can see his confidences down. He's
got this bemused look on his face when the ball
doesn't go where he wants it to go, and I
think he's searching. So we'll just have to see how

(09:05):
long it is before he can find his way back.
I mean, he's too good to just be going away,
but at the moment he's not competing.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
And apart from Roy Mcalroy seven under, the next best
round of the day was the English Englishman Terrell Hatton,
who shot a shot a six under that's got him
up to four under the card. So he's still a
way way back, but a decent second round for Hatton
by the sounds of things.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, and he's a live player. The knock on the
lid players on the Thursday was not one of them
broke part, including him but you know, they dug in
a bit and John Rauhn just made the cut, I
think on the number until I got himself under the leaderboard.
But if you've watched Hill off the course, he's a

(09:51):
super nice guy and very calm. But on the course
he's got a very short fuse and against the national,
particularly if it's firm and fast in the next two rounds,
it's just a test, you know, to light that fuse.
So we'll just have to see how he deals with that.
But you know, he, like everybody else, has got a
stiff neck looking up at the top of the lead

(10:12):
a cooards, So who knows how they're going to respond.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Do they like Rory at Augusta? To the galleries like him?

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Oh? No, everybody loves Rory, There's no question about it.
He's an absolute firm favorite. So you know he's going
to have everybody pulling for him, There's no doubt about that.
So we'll just see how he responds. But I've never
seen him this relaxed before. And I sit next to
Greg Allen, who does Ireland radio and television broadcasting, and

(10:46):
he hung around to get Rory after he did his
press conference and all these millions of other commitments, and
he came back and he said, we are so grateful
to have that guy, because he said he waited back
for us. He answered every question they had thoughtfully and
was friendly to all of them. Haven't always been like that,

(11:08):
you know. There had been times when he's not going
so well. He just didn't want to see any album.
But by and large, you know, if you're going to
have a number one for your country, you'd picked that guy.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Great to get you on the air. As always, Graham,
I'm glad we managed to do it. Sleep well, look
forward to catching up tomorrow, perhaps after round three. Goodness
only knows how far ahead Rory McElroy will be at
that stage, or maybe, as you say, we'll have a contest.
They might set the course up a certain way and
perhaps we will get something a bit more exciting coming
down the stretch. On day four, Graham agars with us

(11:40):
out of Augusta with Rory McElroy are head by six
shots at the halfway point.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
For more from

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live to News Talk
d Be weekends from midday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.