{"id":62372,"date":"2026-09-07T06:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/62372\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T06:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T06:43:12","slug":"justin-rose-fades-at-the-masters-still-joins-scheffler-in-the-hunt-behind-leaders-mcilroy-and-burns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/62372\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Rose fades at the Masters, still joins Scheffler in the hunt behind leaders McIlroy and Burns"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2013 Justin Rose is back in contention at the Masters,<\/a> one year after his playoff loss to Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n

Might be better off that he’s not back in the lead, too.<\/p>\n

Rose has held at least a share of the first-round lead a record five times at Augusta National,<\/a> including last year, but he’s never been able to carry it through the finish. So, Rose’s bogey-bogey conclusion to his opening round Thursday,<\/a> which left the three-time runner-up with a 70 and three shots back of McIlroy and early leader Sam Burns, might not be the worst thing in the world.<\/p>\n

Only trouble is there are a whole lot of big names in the same pack giving chase.<\/p>\n

Former Masters champion Patrick Reed was joined by Jason Day and Kurt Kitayama at 3 under, while Rose was in the group another shot back, along with Scottie Scheffler, Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele \u2014 all of them major champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery hole you’re just being patient through experience,\u201d Rose said, \u201cknowing that grinding out the pars is a good thing. Just eating up the holes is a good thing. You know, getting through Amen Corner is a good thing. All of these things \u2014 you just know how the golf course can play at times, yeah, so every little mini-victory you had out there was worth celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the best scores Thursday were posted by those with early tee times, who took advantage of a little less wind and much softer greens. By the afternoon, the breeze was swirling, the sun had baked the putting surfaces and many of them felt like concrete.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery player would say they would like it firm and fast,\u201d Rose said, \u201cbut I think there\u2019s, like, a boundary to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tough conditions left Schauffele pondering a slightly different approach to his second round Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cPotentially attack less, to be honest,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, less attack and a little more conservative. I mean, there are some nice scores up there early from what I can see. … You just have to be driving it really far to have a shorter club in, or got to be hitting your spots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose and Scheffler were both able to hit their spots early in their rounds.<\/p>\n

By the end of them, the course was at its toughest.<\/p>\n

Rose started off with back-to-back birdies at the second and third, added another at the eighth and twice reached 4 under on the second nine before finishing with consecutive bogeys. Scheffler got off to a similarly hot start with an eagle at the par-5 second and a birdie after driving the green at the par-4 third, only to play a birdieless final 15 holes in 2 over.<\/p>\n

That also ended Scheffler’s streak of four consecutive sub-70 opening rounds at the Masters.<\/p>\n

But it left him very much in contention with 54 holes to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I played really solid,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cThere were a few putts I felt like I made that lipped out or stayed right on the edge. But other than that, really, really a lot of good stuff. I hit it nice. Drove it well today. Hit some good iron shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you know, like you said, it got so firm late in the day. It was pretty challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2013 Justin Rose is back in contention at the Masters, one year after his playoff loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[497,1146,2139,1193,399,2177,208,1450,56,1401],"class_list":["post-62372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-justin-rose","tag-jason-day","tag-justin-rose","tag-kurt-kitayama","tag-patrick-reed","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sam-burns","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-shane-lowry","tag-sports","tag-xander-schauffele"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}