Masters 2026: There's only one man who can stop Rory McIlroy

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Patrick Reed glanced from the clubhouse veranda down at Rory McIlroy as McIlroy came up the 18th, not unlike an apex predator surveying its prey. That sounds absurd given the size of McIlroy's lead—the largest 36-hole lead in Masters history—and the temptation is to say the only thing standing between McIlroy and a second consecutive green jacket are the ghosts that McIlroy seemingly vanished last spring.

Poetic as that sounds, it's prisoner of the moment and ignorant of the past. There is a man at Augusta National who has stopped McIlroy before and knows how to do it again. Reed turned in his second consecutive 69, tied for second at the halfway point with Sam Burns.

The only blemish came at the last, unable to get up-and-down, his par putt failing to slide in, a single dropped shot that cost him a Reed-McIlroy pairing for one final day. No matter. Saturday is moving day.

Sundays are eternal. “ The worst part and the thing that frustrated me most is I hit every golf shot how I wanted to,” Reed said in the afterglow of the bogey. “On 18 you're having to get up and down, and then hit the putt where I wanted to and just doesn't go in.