Once again, Rory McIlroy finds himself on the precipice of history. After a second straight 66 in the third round of The Masters on Saturday, McIlroy enters the final round with a two-shot lead over Bryson DeChambeau as he seeks his first green jacket — and the final piece of golf's career grand slam.
Of course, as good as he's looked so far this week, the hard work is still to come. As the old saying goes, The Masters doesn't truly start until the back nine on Sunday; nothing cranks up the pressure like the perils of Augusta National with immortality on the line, pressure that McIlroy himself has succumbed to in the past.
But while this is still very much anyone's tournament, especially with DeChambeau charging hard, recent Masters history suggests that a 54-hole lead goes a long, long way to determining an eventual champion.
How often do Sunday leaders win The Masters?
Masters history is littered with near-misses and almost-champions, players who had a green jacket in their grasp only to let it slip away. But at least recently, those who took the lead into the final round on Sunday have stood a very good chance of being atop the leaderboard at the end. In fact, only three times in the last decade has the 54-hole leader not come away with the green jacket.
Year | 54-hole leader | Winner |
|---|---|---|
2024 | Scottie Scheffler (-7) | Scottie Scheffler (-11) |
2023 | Brooks Koepka (-11) | Jon Rahm (-12) |
2022 | Scottie Scheffler (-9) | Scottie Scheffler (-10) |
2021 | Hideki Matsuyama (-11) | Hideki Matsuyama (-10) |
2020 | Dustin Johnson (-16) | Dustin Johnson (-20) |
2019 | Francesco Molinari (-13) | Tiger Woods (-13) |
2018 | Patrick Reed (-14) | Patrick Reed (-15) |
2017 | Sergio Garcia/Justin Rose (-6) | Sergio Garcia (-9, def. Rose in playoff) |
2016 | Jordan Spieth (-3) | Danny Willett (-5) |
2015 | Jordan Spieth (-16) | Jordan Spieth (-18) |
Koepka is still trying to live down his Sunday 75 back in 2023, allowing Rahm to quickly erase a two-shot deficit entering the final round. But after that, you have to go back to 2019, when Molinari's double bogey on No. 12 opened the door for Tiger Woods to claim his fifth and final green jacket — and claim his first major after trailing through 54 holes.
Not that this history will be of much comfort to McIlroy on Sunday, as he battles his own final-round demons. Almost 15 years ago, at the 2011 Masters, Rory took a commanding four-shot lead into Sunday, seemingly well on his way to another major victory. And then everything fell apart: a triple bogey on No. 10 and a double bogey on No. 12 led to a final-round 80, dropping him out of even the top 10.
Will that history repeat itself, or will McIlroy be another front-running victor at Augusta?