Justin Rose and Tyrrell Hatton climbed the Augusta National leaderboard on the second day of the 2026 Masters as the tournament moved deeper into round two.
The live action at Augusta brought a series of early swings as players tried to build momentum on a course that rarely gives anything away. The latest updates showed several familiar names making moves, while others worked to limit damage after difficult spells the previous day.
Wyndham Clark remained firmly in the mix after a strong start to his round. His birdie putt at the sixth looked in line to drop, rolling straight before drifting slightly to the right at the last moment and staying out. Even so, he remained at three under par for both the round and the tournament at that point. Clark was no longer the only player posting red numbers for the day, as the leaderboard continued to shift around him.
Im Sungjae, who finished second on debut in the November Masters of 2020, picked up birdies at the seventh and eighth holes to move into under-par territory for the day. He stood at three over par overall. Freddie Couples, meanwhile, gave himself a lift with a birdie at the second to move back to five over. The veteran’s position remained shaped by the difficulties he had already faced on the previous day, when a costly stretch at holes 15, 16 and 17 resulted in a quadruple bogey, followed by back-to-back double bogeys.
Aaron Rai, the winner of the Par 3 Contest, also began his second round in steady fashion. He found the first fairway in regulation and produced a long birdie attempt that brushed the hole. Rai stayed at one under after an opening 71, a score that had hinted at more after he turned in 33 on Thursday.
Clark’s birdie streak eventually came to an end at five in a row, but he still made par at the sixth. His tee shot on that hole finished in the centre of the green, using the slope to move the ball towards a front-left pin. That left him with a makeable birdie chance from around 18 feet, on a putt that was not perfectly straight but as close as Augusta tends to allow.
The second round at Augusta National continued to produce small but important shifts as players tried to position themselves for the weekend. Rose and Hatton were among those moving upward, while Clark, Rai, Sungjae and Couples each featured in the developing picture around the leaderboard.
More updates were still to come as the day progressed at the Masters.
Second-round themes at Augusta
The early part of Friday’s play underlined how quickly momentum can change at the Masters. A player can be rewarded for a precise approach, then punished by a putt that breaks at the last second. Birdies can come in bunches, but they can disappear just as quickly once Augusta’s contours begin to bite.
For Clark, the main question was whether his opening burst could be sustained. For Rai, the task was to convert a promising start into a round that kept him in touch. And for experienced names such as Couples, the aim was simply to recover enough ground to make the number more respectable after a bruising finish to the first round.
With the second round still underway, the leaderboard remained fluid and the pressure continued to build across the field.
