The Masters: day 2 from Augusta National

Preview ahead of Rory McIlroy’s second round at Augusta National.

Transcript

00:00 Hello and welcome to day 2 of the Masters here at Augusta National where Rory McIlroy

00:06 finds himself tied for 15th after an opening round 71, 1 under par score that leaves him

00:15 6 shots off open out leader Bryson DeChambeau and 5 behind playing partner Scotty Sheffler

00:20 who shot a 66 on his way to a 6 under par on day 1 here in Georgia. McIlroy and Sheffler

00:29 back out today at 1.48 which is 6.48 UK time which guarantees another late finish for the

00:37 Ulsterman he had one yesterday after play was delayed slightly and he's had the same

00:42 scenario today Friday with a 1.48 tee off time scheduled. Yesterday he took 5 hours

00:49 to play a round which is sort of a natural for the majors but definitely the weather

00:54 played a huge part in that there with both Rory, Scotty Sheffler and Xander Joffre the

01:03 third member of yesterday's group all taking their time with put shots, drives and putts

01:08 indeed there was numerous occasions where all three would have stepped back from the

01:11 ball redressed and sort of taken the conditions into consideration. McIlroy conceded yesterday's

01:19 conditions were tough as I say play was delayed because of a storm, the storm didn't materialise

01:25 but there was definitely a lot of winds, swirling winds at that and McIlroy did concede afterwards

01:30 that made life slightly tough. Probably contributed to three of the bogeys that he played or that

01:35 he recorded yesterday and no doubt it probably contributed to a 64% success rate when it

01:43 comes to hitting the fairways. Slightly down on Sheffler as you'd expect he had an immaculate

01:49 error free round yesterday, didn't shoot a bogey so McIlroy wanted to improve on that

01:55 today although we all know he has had issues with his driving relatively recently, something

02:00 that he has been working on. The weather probably also contributed to greens in regulation,

02:06 71% he only had 11 of 18 which again at the Masters and at the Majors you want to improve

02:13 those numbers drastically there so again well behind Scottie Sheffler there as well. The

02:19 weather today it's cold at the minute but certainly bright, a lot better conditions

02:24 than yesterday. Temperatures today expected to rise to around 21 degrees with the sun

02:30 shining down on the course already you expect the greens and fairways to dry out and get

02:35 a lot faster. Again we already mentioned yesterday that they're the type of conditions that he

02:42 prefers and the conditions he'll revel in so that there should work in his favour. The

02:47 only downside to that there he does like it calm and with the winds expected to gust around

02:54 about 40mph I predict later on today that's something he is going to have to contend with.

03:00 In fact when he's out the winds are expected to reach a high around about 3 or 4 o'clock

03:05 today so again he'll need to take that into consideration. But it's proven to be another

03:11 exciting day for Rory, he's not out of it by any stretch. He seemed calm yesterday,

03:16 slightly disappointed in what he did especially after a buggy on the 17th and then hitting

03:22 the bunker on the 18th which meant he was scrambling for a par. Left it 1 under as I

03:27 said 6 off Bryson Dechambault but you know all's not lost, plenty of holes still to be

03:34 played and yeah hopefully Rory produces the goods so we'll be here Friday and Saturday

03:41 and yeah contending come Sunday. Yep we'll be here all week with the newsletter with

03:49 variety of live updates so stay tuned at newsletter.co.uk for all the latest from Augusta. Thank you