McIlroy and Burns Share Masters First-Round Lead at 5-Under

Rory McIlroy opened his title defense at the 90th Masters Tournament with a 5-under 67 Thursday, sharing the first-round lead with Sam Burns and immediately positioning himself to accomplish something no player has managed since Tiger Woods: win back-to-back green jackets at Augusta National.

McIlroy's round was far from pristine at the start, but he strung together five birdies across an eight-hole stretch to reach 5-under and post what he called "a fair score," language that suggested he saw room to improve. The 67 made him just the sixth defending Masters champion in history to open the week at that number or better; Cary Middlecoff was the first. A year ago, McIlroy stood seven shots off the pace after Round 1 before his celebrated Sunday playoff charge over Justin Rose completed his career Grand Slam. The contrast illustrated just how cleanly his 18th Masters appearance has begun.

Burns, a Louisiana native ranked 33rd in the world with five PGA Tour victories, matched McIlroy's card through surgical work on Augusta's par 5s. He opened with an eagle, absorbed a bogey, then ran off four birdies, including a 20-foot conversion at the par-3 12th, a birdie at the par-5 13th, and another at the par-5 15th through Amen Corner. It was a card that exploited Augusta National's primary scoring holes without surrendering ground elsewhere.

Three players sit two strokes back at 3-under 69: Kurt Kitayama, Jason Day, and Patrick Reed. Reed, the 2018 Masters champion who recently returned to the PGA Tour after departing LIV Golf, opened with two eagles on his front nine and briefly held the outright lead before a late slip. Kitayama's 69 came the hard way: a double bogey at the 12th after chipping into Rae's Creek, bogeys at 11 and 14, but birdies at Nos. 10, 13, 15, and 17 through what he described as a "grind-it-out mentality."

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, the two-time Masters champion, sits at 2-under after a round that ignited and stalled. He eagled No. 2 and birdied the driveable par-4 No. 3, then went the final 15 holes without recording a single birdie as Augusta toughened in the afternoon. Scheffler did hit 12 of 14 fairways, an 85.7% clip representing the first time in 25 PGA Tour rounds this season he cleared the 80% fairways threshold. Shane Lowry, Xander Schauffele, and Justin Rose also sit at 2-under, with Rose three shots behind the man who edged him in last year's playoff.

At the other end of the leaderboard, Bryson DeChambeau finished 4-over. He had entered the week having held the 54-hole lead in 2025 before a Sunday collapse gave McIlroy the opening he needed.

McIlroy played Thursday alongside Cameron Young, who arrived at Augusta fresh off the biggest win of his career at the 2026 Players Championship. Should McIlroy hold on to win his second consecutive title, he would join an exceptionally short list: only Woods (2001-02), Jack Nicklaus (1965-66), and Nick Faldo (1989-90) have ever repeated as Masters champions. Round 2 tee times begin Friday at 7:40 a.m.