The roar, then, finally followed. McIlroy swung the putt out to the right, and back it came to the left. The ensuing explosion fit McIlroy’s position: After that birdie, and Saturday’s 70, he sits at 12 under par for the week, and he heads into Sunday with a commanding four-shot lead at the Masters.
“I’ve been saying it all week,” McIlroy said. “I feel comfortable. I feel comfortable with my game, comfortable with the way I prepared, and all of a sudden I’m feeling comfortable on this golf course.”
No one else’s pillow could feel quite as fluffy Saturday night. The pursuers, all at 8 under: Angel Cabrera, the 2009 Masters champ from Argentina who shot 67 Saturday; South African Charl Schwartzel, an Ernie Els disciple who managed 68; K.J. Choi, the stout South Korean who suffered from back-to-back bogeys at 11 and 12 en route to 71; and 23-year-old Australian Jason Day, who briefly held the lead alone but looked a bit jittery over the final nine holes in shooting 72.
Notice an absence? Tiger Woods is, technically, still in the tournament at 5 under. But he hardly envisioned his third-round 74. Instead of moving closer to the top, he descended. Only once in his 15 Masters as a professional has Woods produced a higher score on a Saturday.
“It is what it is,” Woods said.
Sunday is, then, one of two things: A validation of McIlroy’s enormous talent or a wait-he’s-not-ready moment.
“It’s natural to get nervous,” McIlroy said. “If I wasn’t nervous on the first tee tomorrow, there’d be something wrong.”
McIlroy carries about him an explosive, don’t-turn-your-head-because-I’ll-make-birdie air, and that was only enhanced as he led the first two days. The Masters, more than any major, provides scoring opportunities, and McIlroy is just the type of swashbuckling player to excel here.
“Every time I play with him he shoots about 8 or 9 under,” said Geoff Ogilvy, who joined those moving backward Saturday. “He’s one of the most impressive players in the world, clearly. He seems to play with no fear. He’s very aggressive, goes at the ball hard. There’s not many pins he’s afraid to shoot at.”
Yet Saturday, he approached Augusta National as if at a U.S. Open, where plodding for pars is the proper mindset. The keys, he said: “Patience and patience.” He made birdie at the fourth, but followed with a drive into the bunker at 5 — a bogey to give the shot right back. When he bogeyed 10, his overnight lead was gone; he, Choi and Day all sat at 9 under. On the move all week, McIlroy sat stalled.
The most likely player to rev on by, Woods, never opened the throttle. His position after 54 holes of his four Masters titles: first, first, first and first. His average score on Saturday in those wins: 66. Had Woods shot 66 Saturday, he would have led McIlroy by a shot.
“It should have been a pretty good round,” Woods said.
Yet he made no putts. The key moment for Woods likely came at the 15th, when he had a putt for eagle. The result: Three putts, a par that felt every bit like a bogey. He worsened the situation with a bogey at the last. If he is to win his 15th major championship, it will be his first from behind.
“I’m going to have to put together a good front nine,” Woods said, “and see what happens.”
If McIlroy puts together a good front nine, it likely won’t matter. Only three players — Greg Norman in 1996, Ed Sneed in 1979 and Ken Venturi in 1956 — have lost the Masters when leading by four or more when Sunday morning dawned. McIlroy isn’t carrying himself as if he’ll be the fourth.
“Rory, the way he’s hitting the ball, he can pretty much go out there and shoot a couple under par and probably win,” Day said. “There’s a lot of pressure on us to obviously go out there and score early so we can put some pressure on him and he can make some mistakes, I guess.”
How many mistakes, though, does McIlroy have in him? In three days, he has three bogeys. His thought on the first tee, he said, will be simple: “There’s no lead. There’s no nothing.”
The reality, though, is different. There is a lead. It is significant. And it is held by a player who seems to relish the ability to create the loudest, throatiest roars in the field.
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