Masters 2016: Leaderboard, live coverage, results and more from Saturday’s round at Augusta

The defending champ is starting to get some cushion with a little more than 18 holes left in his Masters title defense. This sidewinder, with about six feet of break, was right in the cup for a birdie at the par-5 15th. Spieth is unrelenting with the putter, getting back shots he’s thrown away and then putting the pedal down harder to extend his leads. A mishap double bogey at the 11th was erased in four holes thanks to that club.

After the birdie on No. 15, he’s now four clear of the next closest chaser and closing in on another Sunday stroll to a green jacket.

The wind has died down some at Augusta National late in the day making for somewhat easier conditions. The field hasn’t suddenly started racking up birdies, but they are there to be made. But the course is still a fine line between red numbers and disaster as even Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are finding out.

McIlroy started the day at 3-under and just one stroke off the lead. It’s all unraveled from there. He’s yet to make a birdie in the third round and has run into frequent trouble, especially off the tee. Those errant tee shots have left him scrambling, sometimes to disastrous results. Like on No. 11 when he tried to recover from the pine straw, only to hit his approach shot into the water.

It’s been especially difficult to make birdies at Augusta National on Saturday. Jason Day found one way to pull it off.

All you have to do to make a birdie is make a breaking, 69-foot putt. No big deal.

Ask anyone who follows these things closely -- players, media, coaches -- who has the best swing in golf? The answer is almost always Adam Scott or Louis Oosthuizen. Scott is about as pure as it gets tee to green, so if he’s shanking it like this, something has gone horribly wrong.

This was just a basic light iron swing, one he’s made hundreds of thousands of times. But that’s as bad as you’ll ever see from Scott. That part of the gallery really, really should not come into play or be worried about incoming golf balls at the 13th.

It’s been a rough Masters debut for Kevin Kisner. Having grown up just 20 miles from Augusta National, qualifying for the Masters for the first time meant even more to Kisner. That doesn’t make the course any easier, as Kisner has proved during his first three rounds.

His frustrations hit the peak on the tee of No. 12. He was riding a streak of four bogeys in five holes and sounded like he just wanted to be done for the day.

It’s not unusual for an amateur to make the cut at the Masters, so in that sense, Bryson DeChambeau is very normal. That may, however, be the only normal thing about his golf game. DeChambeau, who will turn pro after the tournament, has the most unique approach to golf of any player in the Masters field.

There has been a standard for golf clubs for decades, especially at the highest level. DeChambeau is on his way to changing that. While there are plenty of quirks to DeChambeau’s game -- he wants to eventually employ a side saddle putting technique and floats his golf balls in water and Epsom salt to find perfect ones -- the biggest oddity is his swing.

The combination of pin placements and high winds on Friday crushed the field, with no one breaking 70 for the first time in a Masters round since 2007. Saturday is typically the toughest setup at a Masters before they loosen things up on Sunday. Oh, and also the wind is supposed to be just as strong, if not stronger than Friday. Oh, and the greens should be even more “crusty” and dried out for this third-round test. Here are the targets:

Saturday at the Masters starts the same way it did last year -- with Jordan Spieth on top of the leaderboard. But that’s about where the similarities end. In 2015, Spieth was working on a runaway and the final 36 holes seemed like a formality and stroll to the green jacket presentation on Sunday. He had set the new 36-hole scoring record and no one seemed capable of catching him.

This year, Spieth holds just a one-shot cushion over Rory McIlroy, his contemporary with five major championships already to his name. The defending champ came back to the pack on Friday afternoon in some brutally tough conditions at Augusta National, playing his final 14 holes in 4-over to give the rest of the field a chance.

Jordan Spieth leads the Masters for a record sixth straight round and he wakes up again as the favorite to win the green jacket. Spieth would be the fourth player ever to win consecutive Masters, joining Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo. With 36 holes left to go, Spieth holds a one-shot lead over Rory McIlroy and is now a 2/1 favorite.

McIlroy is nipping at his heels and is 11/5, setting up what could be an all-time weekend at Augusta. The Rory vs. Jordan rivalry is what we’ve all wanted and hoped for and to have it come together so soon, and at the game’s biggest event, is incredible. McIlroy has been in contention at the Masters before, but those blow-up holes have always prevented him from being there in the end.

We’re halfway home at the 2016 Masters and the best is yet to come. There are a few small ways the third round could be set up better for hype and anticipation, but not many. Let’s not get greedy -- we have Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth playing together on the weekend for the first time ever at a major championship. Oh, and they’re also 1-2 on the leaderboard playing in the final tee time of the day.

This is close to perfect. Sure, it might be nice to have Tiger Woods, the ultimate boost in ratings and hype, on hand and somewhere in the picture. Jason Day is a few shots back and not yet joined the battle. Phil Mickelson has gone home. But these are peripheral parts to the rivalry we’d all hoped would materialize and may now be starting at the very first major of the year. Spieth leads for the sixth straight round at the Masters, a new tournament record. But he’s just one shot clear of McIlroy, who turned it on over his final seven holes Friday afternoon to finish 3-under.

It’s happening! It is all happening.

So often in golf the scenarios we want most never come to fruition. It’s such a game of chance, luck, variance, and everything in between that the outcome is rarely predictable. This is why it’s been so hard to develop modern rivalries and see the best guys go head-to-head at the biggest events.

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.

Phil Mickelson took a lot of heat for showing up for Friday’s second round of the Masters in battleship grey, but it was an ice-cold short game that had him packing his suitcase for home after two rounds.

Lefty, who had played inspired golf entering the tournament, appeared to be a lock for a Saturday tee time after carding an even-par 72 in Thursday’s opener. The 45-year-old, three-time Masters winner got it to 1-under through six on Friday, but it was not to be for Mickelson. He finished at 7-over — one shot south of the cut line — and missed just his third Masters weekend in 24 starts.

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.