By Don Riddell, CNN
Augusta, Georgia (CNN) — There’s no such thing as a sure thing at the Masters – just ask Rory McIlroy.
In 2011, his 4-stroke lead imploded during an excruciating final round that scarred him until he finally won the tournament in 2025. On Saturday, his record-breaking six-stroke advantage completely evaporated.
The defending champion, seemingly coasting to another green jacket, ended his day in a worse position than he had started, and he’s now the only player in the top 14 who heads into the final round going backward.
“Didn’t quite have it today,” he said to a gaggle of reporters outside of the clubhouse. “This golf course has a way of – you know, when you’re not quite feeling it, you struggle. I know I’m going to have to be better if I want to have a chance to win.”
It was a highly stressful afternoon for McIlroy. All week, he had been wild off the tee, but on Thursday and Friday, he had managed to turn water into wine, making birdie after birdie to take control of the tournament.
He was excelling despite himself; through 36 holes, his driving accuracy was worse than all bar one player in the field. He had missed over half of the fairways, and yet he still managed to shoot 12-under par, a vindication of his prodigious short game and the liberating knowledge that he was no longer burdened by the pursuit of an elusive green jacket.
On Friday after his round, he told CNN Sports that on Saturday, he planned to keep his foot on the gas, that he would resist the temptation to defend his yawning advantage. But as the chasing pack kept biting chunks out of his lead, he found that the best he could hope for was simply keeping his head above water.
Again, he struggled to keep his ball on the fairway, missing another six, but this time his irons and putter went cold. McIlroy managed to hang on through his first nine holes before coming unstuck at Amen Corner.
He found water at 11 and limped away with a double bogey, he then dropped another stroke on 12 after duffing his chip from the back of the green. On Azaelea, the iconic 13th hole, McIlroy was again way offline, punching out from the pine straw and hitting a security rope on the ground. He escaped with a par and, although he seemed to recover with back-to-back birdies, he was in the pine straw again at 17, where he dropped back to 11 under par.
A day that had started with the promise of a procession towards another green jacket had descended into a scenic – and unwelcome – navigation of the Augusta National course.
“I’m still tied for the best score going into tomorrow, so I can’t forget that,” he said, “I’d like to think that I’ll play a little bit freer and I’ll play, you know, like I’ve already got a green jacket, which I do. Sometimes I maybe just have to remind myself of that.”
When McIlroy romped to the clubhouse on Friday night with an unprecedented lead, it seemed as though history was on his side. Nobody had ever been so far ahead at the halfway stage, and, of the six players who had held five-shot leads previously, only one had failed to see it through to Sunday.
Now, McIlroy finds himself looking over his shoulder. He’s tied for the lead with Cameron Young and no fewer than eight players are within just four strokes of the top of the leaderboard.
Young, who will accompany McIlroy in Sunday’s final pairing, is looking to continue a two-year trend of Players Championship winners who went on to claim the green jacket, and he’s red hot after shooting a 7-under par 65.
“It would be an incredible day,” he told CNN of the potential to end it with a green jacket. “It’s something I’ve dreamed of doing for a long time. If you had said on Thursday at about noon that I was going to be within a couple of the lead going into