AUGUSTA, Ga. – Rory McIlroy’s victory lap has turned into rush hour.
With the driest tournament week in some 15 years, it would allow Augusta National Golf Club to be set up as firm, fast and furious as desired, and naturally, prognosticators anticipated the lugnuts being tightened for Saturday’s third round. That, of course, would theoretically allow McIlroy, a record six shots clear at the midway point and freed up from last year’s Masters breakthrough, to turn on the cruise control while watching his challengers in the rearview struggle to make up ground.
Not so fast.
Aided by high temps and little wind, Augusta National was plenty scorable, yielding 19 rounds in the 60s (one off the tournament’s third-round record, set in 2019) and a 70.63 field average, the lowest ever for Round 3. Two players, Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Young, carded 7-under 65 with Young not only catching McIlroy but passing the reigning Masters champion altogether before eventually settling two-wide alongside McIlroy (73) at 11 under.
Behind them, six more players are within four shots of the lead, including Sam Burns, who shot 68 in the final pairing to move to 10 under, where he’s solo third, a shot clear of Shane Lowry, who also posted 68 that included an ace with 7-iron at the 190-yard sixth hole.
“I expected to see it a little bit different than what I saw today,” said Jason Day, who sits T-5 with Justin Rose at 8 under. “I mean, you were hitting shots in there that were spinning. Typically, sometimes you get to Saturday at Augusta, and they’re bouncing, and it’s really difficult to hold some shots.”
McIlroy looked like he was playing a different golf course at times. The last couple days, Fred Couples was among those who wondered if McIlroy would ever lose here again. “He really could win five more of these,” Couples reckoned on Friday as McIlroy lapped the field with a 65 of his own. Yet, a day later, McIlroy suddenly found himself trying to keep the wheels from falling off.
He missed a 7-footer for par at the par-4 first hole, opening with what he called a “soft bogey.”
He drove the green at the par-4 third and two-putted from 22 feet, though he failed to notch another birdie in what was a level-par 36 on the first nine.
He pushed to 13 under and his lead back to four shots with birdie at the par-4 10th, but then came the big swing. Young, who earlier chipped in at the par-3 fourth for one of four first-nine birdies, birdied Nos. 13 and 14, the former after his drive clocked a tree and miraculously kicked back into the fairway, still allowing Young to reach the green in two with 6-iron. He had a couple other fortuitous bounces, including at the ninth, where his approach hit a patron behind the green and kicked back onto the putting surface, to about 35 feet.
“You’ll take anything you can get,” Young said. “We all get enough bad breaks. You’re bound to get some good ones, and you’re bound to get two or three good ones in a day. I feel, not that I’m owed anything, but when they do start going your way, take them and keep going because they’re not always going to.”
Meanwhile, McIlroy overcooked a long-iron into the front hole location at the par-4 11th, his ball coming up short and left, running into the pond. He doubled there with a missed 6-footer, then, feeling admittedly uneasy, bogeyed the par-3 12th after flying the green and failing to get up and down.
Walking off the 12th green, McIlroy had briefly dropped into a tie with Young, who spun a wedge back into the water and bogeyed the par-5 15th. But a 27-foot birdie make at the par-3 16th, Young’s eighth and final of the round, gave someone other than McIlroy the solo lead for the first time since Burns led on Thursday afternoon.
Battling a left miss for much of the day, McIlroy was proud of the way he battled, scrambling his butt off, none more so than at the par-3 sixth, where he clipped his chip beautifully from well below the green and then rolled in a slider to save par. And later, after losing his lead, he hit his first fairway of the week on a par-5 before two-putting the 15th to get a shot back. He bogeyed No. 17 coming in, but ultimately, even with company now, he still sits atop this leaderboard.
“This golf course has a way of, you know, when you’re not quite feeling it, you struggle,” McIlroy said. “You have to dig deep, and I felt like I did that … but, you know, I still have a great chance. I’m in the final group. I just need to go to the range and try to figure it out a little bit.”
McIlroy was the seventh player in Masters history to lead by five or more shots through two rounds. All but one of the previous six, all with five-shot advantages, went on to secure the green jacket. Only Harry Cooper, in 1936, failed to win.
Cooper, however, wasn’t already wearing a green jacket.
McIlroy contended on Saturday evening that he still expects this Sunday’s final pairing to be noticeably less pressurized. He’s not worried about those uncontrollable nerves that long denied him the career slam. Sure, he wishes he was a few shots better, but he’s comfortable.
“Sometimes I maybe just have to remind myself of that,” McIlroy added.
While Young has yet to lift that maiden major trophy, he also owns six career top-10s in major championships, including a runner-up at the 2022 Open Championship at St. Andrews. He’s also only eight months removed from nabbing his first PGA Tour title, though Young took confidence from some previous near-misses and has since opened the floodgates, starring at last year’s Ryder Cup and recently capturing the Players Championship in an impressive display of golf and mental fortitude.
Young called that Sunday at TPC Sawgrass, where he outlasted Matt Fitzpatrick by a shot, the best Masters prep he could’ve asked for. When he opened in 40 on Thursday at Augusta National, Young leaned that experience and remained calm.
“I think this place really punishes you if you play angry or impatient,” Young said. “When something goes wrong, those are the things that you kind of naturally want to be. So, it’s fighting those natural inclinations toward those feelings and not letting it affect your decision-making, your execution for another shot.”
That said, Young says what he’s done prior to Sunday afternoon, where he’ll go off at 2:25 pm. ET alongside McIlroy, guarantees him nothing.
“I’ve got to go earn whatever I get out of tomorrow,” Young added, “and the best way that I know to do that is kind of try to attack the day like I have the last three.”
Surely, it won’t be as easy as it was Saturday. No chance. This is no longer a McIlroy coronation but turn four at Talladega with Augusta National primed to finally shift into high gear.
As Lowry said, “It’s getting real now.”