Masters leaderboard 2016: Jordan Spieth extends his lead over Rory McIlroy

The first round of Saturday’s Rory McIlroy vs. Jordan Spieth battle goes to the defending Masters champion. Spieth started the day up one shot and through three holes, he’d extended his margin to three.

The swing started at the par-5 second hole, an easier scoring hole on what is a brutally tough and windy day at Augusta. McIlroy must make his moves at the par-5s. It’s how he competes at this place and he’s been better than everyone in the field on those holes this week. Early in his Masters career, he threw away shots and did not take advantage of his enormous power off the tee that gives him an opportunity on the par-5s. In the past few years, he’s figured out how to pile up red numbers there and this week he was 7-under on the eight par-5s in the first two rounds.

But at the par-5 second, McIlroy bombed his drive into a steep fairway bunker that would make a birdie difficult.

Spieth yanked his drive left but it still gave him the chance to get up around the green, whereas Rory just had to pop it out of the bunker and down the fairway. It was a missed birdied chance for Rory and a quick strike for Spieth.

Both players made a bit of a mess at the third hole, but Jordan’s up-and-down short game yielded yet another par save. His drive was right of right, deep into the woods.

He was able to get it off the pine straw to the back of the green, make his clean par and move on to the 4th. Pars will be good scores on every single hole on a day like this.

Rory put his drive in another fairway bunker, spun his sand shot way off the front of the green and could not get up-and-down and finished with his first bogey of the day. So a one-shot lead quickly became three in this pairing that we’ll be watching every step along the way.

Here’s your leaderboard on Saturday afternoon:

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