AUGUSTA, Ga. — Bryson DeChambeau had turned in one of day’s best performances, outdriving everyone in the field and needing only 24 putts to get through his opening round of the Masters. So what did he do next? DeChambeau reported right to the driving range Thursday evening for some post-round practice.

He kept swinging, shot after shot, until he was the last golfer remaining. Soon it was dark, past 8 p.m. All of the fans and most of the workers had left for the day, but DeChambeau continued blasting balls into the Georgia night.

He was certain he still had a better round in him, and DeChambeau reported to work for the second round Friday eager to prove it. The 31-year-old reigning U.S. Open champion indeed made a charge up the leader board, carding five birdies and posting a 68 — one shot better than he managed Thursday. He entered the clubhouse at 7 under par, a shot off the lead, helping set the stage for what promises to be a memorable weekend, with several of the game’s heavyweights in contention for a green jacket.

DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are all in the hunt, trying to reel in Justin Rose, a two-time runner-up here who shot a second-round 71 and sits atop the leader board at 8 under. This marks the third time the 44-year-old Englishman has had at least a share of the lead 36 holes into the Masters.

“This is what golf is about. Got a lot of great names up there,” DeChambeau said, “and looking forward to an unbelievable test of golf.”

After McIlroy’s disappointing finish Thursday — two double bogeys in the final four holes for an even-par round — the Northern Irishman provided some fireworks Friday, a bogey-free round that included a spectacular eagle on No. 13. He turned in the lowest round of the day, a 6-under 66 that left him at 6 under and two shots behind Rose.

“Overall just proud of myself with how I responded today after the finish last night,” McIlroy said. “I just had to remind myself that I played very good golf yesterday and I wasn’t going to let two bad holes dictate the narrative for the rest of the week.”

Corey Conners will enter Saturday’s third round tied with McIlroy for third, and Scheffler, stymied by an adventurous bogey on 18, is three off the lead after grinding out a second-round 71.

Friday’s wind gusts and slick greens laid waste to several of the game’s most accomplished players who missed the cut, including Brooks Koepka (5 over), Cam Smith (5 over), Adam Scott (5 over), Sergio García (4 over) and Dustin Johnson (3 over), as well as Bernhard Langer, the two-time Masters champion who was playing in his 41st and final Masters.

DeChambeau will be playing the weekend, though he has never been viewed as a perfect fit for an Augusta National course that demands precision, patience and discipline. In his first five trips here, he finished no better than 21st — and that came when he was the low amateur at age 22.

“I think as an amateur, I felt like I knew the golf course pretty well, but I didn’t know how to control a lot of the nerves that flowed through my body,” he said, “and that was something that I still work on today.”

He has been working on that — and just about everything else. DeChambeau has approached the game as both a muscle-bound brute and a calculating mad scientist. The current iteration of DeChambeau is a bit of both, an overzealous student determined to master the maddening game.

On Thursday, DeChambeau hit 210 balls at the range, according to tournament statistics. Most golfers hit far fewer than 100; Rose, the first-round leader, hit only 30 before his round. While many golfers prefer to preserve their energy and prioritize rest and recovery during a tournament, DeChambeau has hit a total of 874 balls at the range this week, including 393 on Tuesday alone.

Would all of that extra work be the difference? DeChambeau’s opening-round 69 on Thursday meant he started the second round tied for fifth. But he didn’t stay there very long, posting birdies on three of the first five holes, including chipping in from a bunker on the par-3 fourth hole. Perhaps most impressive was his birdie on No. 5, which is playing harder than any other hole, with only eight birdies to 57 bogeys through two rounds.

“On the fifth hole, I said to myself, I’ve got to feel something that’s a little different,” DeChambeau said. “And lo and behold, I think I just started to integrate more of an up-and-down motion. And that just felt more comfortable to me, and I started doing it.”

He’s constantly finding opportunities and tweaking his approach, mid-tournament, mid-round and even mid-swing. He can cycle through 100 swing thoughts “pretty easily,” he said, maybe 15 to 20 in a single range session. “I’ve got a lot going on up in there,” he joked Friday. “You wouldn’t want to be in there.”

On the range, a member of his team carries more than a dozen driver heads in a backpack. Surely, one of those will work, DeChambeau figures, and he will keep swinging until he finds the right one.

“For speeds of my caliber, it has to be super precise,” he said. “So I’m testing different heads to see how it reacts, how I feel, how it feels in my hands.”

The tireless work ethic and constant tinkering haven’t always produced results. DeChambeau missed the cut here in 2022 and 2023 and at one point went six straight rounds scoring no better than 74. But last year he was the first-round leader after posting a 65, and though he failed to break par in the three ensuing rounds, DeChambeau showed himself and the golf world that he knew his way around the course.

“Each year I learn a little bit more about winds and how it affects the golf ball on a certain hole or a certain slope around a pin location,” DeChambeau said this week, “just little things that continue to improve my knowledge around the golf course.”

The extra work has increasingly paid off for DeChambeau, who plays on the LIV Golf circuit. He was tied for first after the second round last year before going 4 over on the final 36 holes, ending the tournament tied for sixth. DeChambeau has spent the past 12 months working to improve on that finish — ball after ball after ball, fueled by visions of a green jacket.

After Friday’s round, he did a few television interviews and attended a news conference. And then, to no one’s surprise, he went back at the range. There, DeChambeau hit 50 more practice balls, the final prep for a weekend in Augusta he has been dreaming about — and working for — his entire life.