Mike Weir isn't playing by himself in the second round of the 2023 Masters on Friday. He has someone alongside him. But it's not Kevin Na, who withdrew from the tournament on Thursday after a first-nine 40. Na withdrew citing illness, and he looked quite unhappy in the nine holes he played at Augusta National.
However, if Weir were to go off by himself on Friday, his pacing would be dramatically impacted. All but two of the original Thursday-Friday groupings at the 2023 Masters were threesomes, with the Weir-Na twosome kicking off their wave of the draw each day so they wouldn't be stuck behind a threesome.
On Friday, though, the Weir-Na group was set to tee off at 10:36 a.m. -- squarely in the middle of the draw, with threesomes in front of them and coming behind them. Now playing solo, Weir, who shot 72 in the first round, would face interminable waits between shots that could stifle his chances of making the cut and moving up the leaderboard.
That's why Weir is playing with a non-competing marker, Augusta National Golf Club member Michael McDermott, per Jason Sobel of Action Network. McDermott takes over in this role for Jeff Knox, who has been the non-competing marker of choice at the Masters for years but no longer is in the role.
McDermott will play a round alongside Weir that will not count toward any tournament leaderboard. Rather, McDermott will play solely to help Weir keep a somewhat normal pace and be able to go through a normal set of motions while competing in the most famous golf tournament in the world. This way, the duo will be able to pace the threesomes in front of them without getting so far ahead that they would have to wait an uncomfortable amount in what will be close to a five-hour round.
Once the round is over, McDermott will not be needed to play again as a non-competing marker unless the Masters cut rule to the top 50 and ties leaves the field with an uneven number of players that will not work for the scheduled twosomes or the potentially required threesomes that might happen in an attempt to complete the tournament by Sunday night. With rain scheduled throughout much of Friday and pretty much all of Saturday, the schedule and tee sheet could potentially be thrown off by the weather.
