2016 Masters: Live scores, leaderboard updates and more from Friday’s 2nd round at Augusta

It’s been an emotional day for Tom Watson. He failed to make the cut in his last trip at the Masters. A 43-year Masters career ended and Watson teared up as he walked to the 18th hole.

That inspired avid golf fan Lil Wayne, who was watching at home to react the only way he knew. He stood up and applauded. We need Watson to party with Wayne to celebrate a great Masters career. Now the only question is this: was Lil Wayne watching it in VR?

Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy entered the 2016 Masters as arguably the two most compelling players in the field. Ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the world, both had a lot on the line this week. Spieth headed to Augusta National attempting to defend his Masters title. McIlroy arrived once again gunning for his first green jacket, which would complete the career grand slam. The two head to the weekend in first and second place, and to the delight of golf fans they’ll be paired in the final pairing on Saturday.

The Spieth-McIlroy pairing is a dream scenario and a made-for-TV event. Both are fan favorites and are expected to battle head-to-head in majors for the next 20 years. They’ve dominated the golf landscape the last two years, winning a combined four major championships. While they’ve both had success, they haven’t had it at the same time. Instead, Saturday will be the first time the two are paired on the weekend in a major championship.

The golf gods have blessed us at the 2016 edition of the Masters. We’ve been asking for a Rory McIlroy-Jordan Spieth rivalry to start budding, and for the first time at a major championship they will play together on the weekend. Oh, also, it will be the final pairing of the day.

Spieth sits on the lead at the Masters for the sixth straight round -- a new record. But he’s not exactly going to bed feeling great about himself. The defending champion started his round on fire, making an immediate statement on the difficult 1st hole that this might be another runaway on the weekend like last year. A birdie at the 1st, then a dart to just two feet at the 3rd pushed him to 8-under for the tournament. At that point, he had a five-shot lead, extending the margin and looking flawless on a course that was beating everyone else up all day.

Defending Masters champion Jordan Spieth did not start the week at Augusta National as the favorite to win his second straight Masters. It only took 18 holes for that to change quickly and in a big way. Spieth’s opening round 6-under 66, which put him right back on the lead for the fifth straight Masters round, makes him the overwhelming favorite with 54 more holes to go. He started the week at 8/1 and is now 9/5 to win a second green jacket.

Spieth’s prospects can obviously change in hurry at Augusta -- that’s the nature of the place, as we saw with Jason Day on Thursday. Day, the No. 1 player in the world, was cruising right along and looked like he’d pass Spieth’s early leading score. After 5-under 31 on the first nine, Day unraveled down the stretch, putting one in the water at the 16th and making a triple bogey. He played Nos. 15-17 in 5-over to erase all the work he did on the first nine and drop back to even-par. Day, who started the week as the slight favorite at 7/1, is now 9/1 which is ... not great value for a guy, however dangerous he may be, six shots back.

So much for Jordan Spieth coming into the defense of his wire-to-wire Masters title not quite in major championship form.

With the golf world wringing its collective hands over the so-so play of the road-weary globetrotter in six events since he won the PGA Tour’s 2016 opener at Kapalua, it took Spieth one round to assume his place at the top of the leaderboard and turn the skeptics into believers. And as he did last year, when he tied Tiger Woods’ 72-hole scoring mark of 18-under 270, Spieth, with an opening 6-under 66, had pundits turning to the record books, and players turning to the past, to put his mastery of Augusta National in historical perspective.

The wind is supposed to be up again on Friday at the Masters, which will make firing into pins difficult. Here are the targets for the second round:

An absent Tiger Woods has muffled some of the usual outcries about Augusta National’s policy of restricting TV coverage of their most dignified golf tournament. It was Tiger who so often ginned up the most anger, when the wider sports audience, the one that doesn’t always watch golf, realized that he was playing his first or second round in obscurity.

The limited coverage, however, is still incredibly frustrating and leaves so many big names and leaders simply out of view for a good portion of the first two days of the tournament. ESPN will carry the broadcast again on Friday, not coming not the air until 3 p.m. ET, which is about six or seven hours later than they would when they carried the U.S. Open and British Open. The livestreams on Masters.com have mitigated some of this frustration, but it’s still crazy that you can’t just watch it on TV. And despite the improvement in stream offerings, you are still actually missing major portions of some of the biggest superstars’ rounds.

Tom Watson first played the Masters in 1970 as an amateur. It was the first of many memorable marches for Watson at Augusta National. He missed the cut in his first attempt, but would later win two green jackets in the process of becoming one of the best golfers of all time.

This year, Watson is playing his final Masters, an event with a course that he says has “outgrown” his old-man game. No doubt, Watson has spent the week reflecting on history at Augusta National -- his favorite rounds, shots and people here.