Rory McIlroy Makes Masters History with Largest Lead Ever After Round 2 of 2026 Tournament

In his quest to become the first back-to-back Masters champion since Tiger Woods in 2002, Rory McIlroy birdied six of his last seven holes in the second round on Friday to finish the day at 12-under and take a six-shot lead on the field.

It is the largest 36-hole edge a golfer has held in the history of the Masters, which marked the 90th iteration of the event this year.

Patrick Reed and Sam Burns are tied for second at six-under.

McIlroy's closing four-hole stretch was nothing short of spectacular, highlighted by No. 17, when he made a chip-in birdie from 29 yards away to move to 11-under.

He then followed that up with a 148-yard approach shot to six feet on the 18th green, and McIlroy then made birdie to finish a phenomenal round.

The closing stretch didn't look all that promising for McIlroy when he hit his drive on the par-five 15th well right and on some pinestraw under a patron's folding chair.

However, McIlroy had an opening and hit the ball back onto the fairway about 93 yards from the hole. He then hit an absolute dart 10 feet from the pin and took care of business from there for the birdie.

On No. 16, McIlroy used a back slope on the green to get the ball to three feet of the hole, and he tidied up from there for birdie.

McIlroy was actually tied with Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, at six-under after he finished his 11th hole. However, back-to-back birdies led to a two-shot advantage before a par on the 14th and a blistering final stretch.

Per ESPN's SportsCenter, the previous record for a 36-hole lead at the Masters was five strokes.

That feat was accomplished on six different occasions and most recently in 2022, when Scottie Scheffler took a commanding lead en route to the first of his two green jackets. Harry Cooper (1936), Herman Keiser (1946), Jack Nicklaus (1975), Raymond Floyd (1976) and Jordan Spieth (2015) were the other five. The only one to not finish as the Masters champion was Cooper, who finished second by one stroke to Horton Smith.

McIlroy is obviously the clear favorite now heading into the weekend, although he does have some stiff competition with a former Masters champion in Reed, a five-time PGA Tour winner in Burns and three other talented golfers at five-under in Justin Rose (2013 US Open champion and three-time Masters runner-up), Shane Lowry (2019 Open champion) and Tommy Fleetwood (2025 FedEx Cup winner).