Defending champion Dustin Johnson feels he didn’t putt very well, as four-time major winner Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka and him miss Augusta Masters cut
Dustin Johnson at Augusta Masters on Friday. Pic /getty mages; (right) Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka
Top-ranked defending champion Dustin Johnson has more time to prepare for next week’s US PGA Heritage Classic than he really wanted after missing the cut at the 85th Masters.
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Four-time major winner Rory McIlroy also failed to reach the weekend for only the second time in 13 trips to Augusta National, missing his chance to complete a career Grand Slam for another year.
Koepka disappointed
And four-time major champion Brooks Koepka, who battled to play after right knee surgery a month ago, wasn’t among the 54 who reached the weekend at the year’s first major championship. “I worked my ass off just to get here and then to play like this is pretty disappointing,” Koepka said.
Justin Rose. Pic/AFP
Johnson and Koepka each cited putting woes as their reason for being done, although Koepka will get weekend physical therapy and Johnson must put the green jacket on the shoulders of the new Masters champion in a Sunday ceremony.
“Mostly just the putter. Six three-putts in two rounds, you just can’t do that,” Johnson said. “Didn’t drive it great but drove it good enough, and I felt like I never was really too bad out of position. Just the three-putts killed me.
“I just didn’t putt very well. My speed was awful. I just left it short from 10 feet there on the last hole. I just didn’t have a good beat on the speed the last two days.” Koepka and Johnson both shot 75 to finish on five-over 149 while McIlroy, who did not speak after, was on 150 after a closing 74.
Rose clings to lead
Meanwhile, Justin Rose carried a one-stroke lead into Saturday’s third round of the Masters with major winners Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas on his heels and thunderstorms in the forecast. The Englishman, 40, is trying to become the sixth wire-to-wire Masters champion after Americans Craig Wood (1941), Arnold Palmer (1960), Jack Nicklaus (1972), Ray Floyd (1976) and Spieth (2015). Rose, twice a Masters runner-up, won his only major title at the 2013 US Open. He has led or shared the Masters lead after seven career rounds, the most of any player never to win a green jacket.
World No. 41 Rose could become the first Englishman to win both the US Open and Masters and join Ben Hogan as the only players to win majors at Merion and Augusta.
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