{"id":71416,"date":"2026-04-10T19:01:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T00:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/rory-mcilroy-surges-into-six-shot-masters-lead-with-stunning-second-round-flourish\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:01:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T00:01:54","slug":"rory-mcilroy-surges-into-six-shot-masters-lead-with-stunning-second-round-flourish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/rory-mcilroy-surges-into-six-shot-masters-lead-with-stunning-second-round-flourish\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy surges into six-shot Masters lead with stunning second-round flourish"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Six birdies in final seven holes for defending champion<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Burns and Reed at -6, Rose, Lowry and Fleetwood at -5<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After spending 16 years as the hunter, Rory McIlroy is relishing his position as the hunted. The defending Masters champion has reached the halfway point of the 2026 staging in a style that asserts his desperation to hang on to the Green Jacket. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/mar\/18\/rory-mcilroy-puts-elk-on-masters-champions-dinner-menu-augusta-golf\">Elk, served as sliders<\/a> in the 36-year-old\u2019s champions dinner on Tuesday evening, were seen diving for cover in mountainous regions as McIlroy placed daylight between himself and pretenders to his throne.<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2025\/apr\/14\/rory-mcilroy-secures-career-grand-slam-after-dramatic-masters-playoff-win-over-justin-rose\">won at Augusta National in 2025<\/a> and eventually discovered that was not his final career destination after all. He is now 36 holes from becoming only the fourth man in history to back up a Masters win with a Masters win. McIlroy\u2019s distinctly relaxed state of mind means only the bold will back against him from here. Even the prospect of falling short is unlikely to perturb McIlroy. He did quite enough of that in earlier years before rebounding in ferocious fashion. A grand slam winner has a mindset to match.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/apr\/11\/rory-mcilroy-six-shot-masters-lead--stunning-second-round-golf\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six birdies in final seven holes for defending champion Burns and Reed at -6, Rose, Lowry and Fleetwood at -5 After spending 16 years as the hunter, Rory McIlroy is relishing his position as the hunted. The defending Masters champion has reached the halfway point of the 2026 staging in a style that asserts his &#8230; <a title=\"Rory McIlroy surges into six-shot Masters lead with stunning second-round flourish\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/rory-mcilroy-surges-into-six-shot-masters-lead-with-stunning-second-round-flourish\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Rory McIlroy surges into six-shot Masters lead with stunning second-round flourish\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}