Rory McIlroy's big Masters lead disappears, tournament now wide open

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Rory McIlroy never makes it easy, especially at Augusta National.

McIlroy’s six-stroke advantage, the largest 36-hole lead in Masters history was gone by the time he bogeyed the 12th hole on Saturday, and while he stanched the bleeding with birdies at Nos. 14 and 15 to shoot 1-over 73, he has stiff competition for the title.

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McIlroy shares the 54-hole lead with Cameron Young at 12-under 204, but the 90th Masters is wide open with 11 players within five strokes. That includes world No. 1 and two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, who shot a bogey-free 65 on Saturday to climb within four strokes, McIlroy’s Irish pal Shane Lowry, who made an ace at No. 6 and is three back, and Justin Rose, the three-time nearly man at the Masters who is back in the thick of it after losing to McIlroy in a sudden-death playoff a year ago. Then there are American Ryder Cup teammates Young, who shot 65, and Sam Burns, who posted 68 and sits one back. McIlroy let them all back into it by shooting the worst score of anyone in the top 43 in the field.

Rory McIlroy reacts after a putt on the 18th green during the third round of the 2026 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.

After McIlroy changed the complexion of the Masters with six birdies in his final seven holes on Friday to flip the script from a tightly-contested tournament to a six-stroke romp, the narrative shifted to talks of McIlroy pulling a Secretariat or Tiger Woods 1997-type cakewalk. But it was only halftime and McIlroy, who ranked 90th out of 91 players in driving accuracy, couldn’t get by with the exquisite short game and hot putting that had carried him for two days.

McIlroy started the third rounds with a soft bogey at the first and it wasn’t long before his lead was trimmed to two. He scrambled for pars and made the turn at even for the day and still in front but the back nine was marred by the type of mistakes Jack Nicklaus warned him against making if he wants to become the fourth player to repeat at the Masters – an exclusive club of Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods. That included a double bogey at 11, a bogey a 12 and another at 17.

“This golf course has a way of, you know, when you're not quite feeling it, you struggle. You have to dig deep, and I felt like I did that on the front nine and made a lot of good par saves,” McIlroy said.

The five-time major champion could have stepped on the neck of the field with a score in the 60s on Saturday and put his stamp on the 90th Masters. He did that at the 2011 U.S. Open and 2014 PGA Championship when he won those majors by eight strokes. But that was a long time ago. One patron wondered to another after McIlroy was busy working hard for par at 13, “Is he intentionally playing this way to make it more interesting?” Probably not but it sure has infused drama into what could be a wild chase for this year’s Green Jacket.

“I still have a great chance. I'm in the final group,” McIlroy said. “I have to look at the positives even though there isn't that many to take today.”

Rory McIlroy prepares to putt on the 18th hole during the third round of the 2026 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.

And then McIlroy high-tailed to the practice range knowing he needs to be better in the final round if he’s going to go home in the Green Jacket again.

If not McIlroy, a host of players in the chasing pack, some who have won majors before like Jason Day, Rose, Lowry and, of course, Scheffler, are poised to add to their collection while Young, Burns and Haotong Li would like nothing more than to join the club as major winners. \

The Masters went from McIlroy's to lose to anyone's game. As Justin Rose's caddie Mark Fulcher told Rose's wife Kate as they walked to scoring on Saturday, "We just have to play nicely tomorrow and who knows?"

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Masters 2026: Rory McIlroy's six-shot lead is gone heading to Sunday