Forget Palm Sunday and the second Seder night. The real religious experience today will be transpiring at what this time of year is pure heaven on Earth, the Masters course in Augusta, Georgia.
Yesterday we were set up for the potential of true history by a truly stirring performace, as CBS SPORTS’ Adam Silverstein and Robby Kalland enthusiastically reported:
Perhaps no one in the history of Augusta National Golf Club has taken “Moving Day” more seriously than Rory McIlroy did Saturday. Becoming the first player in course history to score 3s across his opening six holes while charging to the top of the leaderboard, the four-time major winner — more than a decade after winning his last — has taken a two-shot lead at the 2025 Masters on the back of a 6-under third round for the ages.
McIlroy went 5 under across his first five holes, adding a stunning eagle on the 15th as he moved to 12 under for the tournament and 11 under across his last 27 holes starting with the second nine on Friday. He boomed his driver, lofted his irons and made crucial putts with regularity. Outside of a brief lapse when bogeys fell on the 8th and 10th — a stretch that might have derailed his effort in the past — he steadied himself quickly with a birdie on the 13th and his second eagle of the day on the 15th.
And for as dramatic as those events of yesterday were, they are all the more compelling given McIlroy’s recent history. , as Silverstein and Kalland added:
In the 14 years since, McIlroy has held solo 54-hole leads in four major championships. He’s won them all, the last infamously coming at the 2014 PGA Championship given it’s the most recent major he captured in his exemplary career. McIlroy has been chasing an elusive fifth major, prestigious green jacket and even more exclusive career grand slam ever since. He’s finished 0-38 in majors and 0-10 in Masters with excruciating second-place finishes four times overall and once at Augusta National (2022). There have been coughed-up fourth-round leads, come-from-behind finishes that fell short and every type of close-call in between.
And to add still more to this hero’s saga, there is a villain who could be yet another heartbreaking spoiler, as Rick Mease of what’s left of the WASHINGTON POST submitted:
If McIlroy left just a bit of magic from Saturday’s round in his bag for the final 18 holes, his fraught, decade-long dalliance with heartbreak at major tournaments just might end Sunday. He’ll be paired in the final group with DeChambeau, the animated basher who shot a 69 and stands at 10 under with 18 holes to reel in McIlroy. It promises to be a high-drama pairing, a rematch of sorts that pits the face of the PGA Tour against LIV Golf’s biggest star.
“It’ll be the grandest stage that we’ve had in a long time, and I’m excited for it,” DeChambeau said. “We both want to win really badly. … It’s going to be an electric atmosphere.”
DeChambeau won the U.S. Open by one stroke over McIlroy last June. McIlroy posted three bogeys on the final stretch there and was in the clubhouse helplessly watching as DeChambeau saved par on No. 18 and drove a dagger into McIlroy’s star-crossed quest for a fifth major title.
And the fact that it’s DeChambeau, not only a champion for a maverick tour but an unabashed supporter and sometimes foursome partner of a certain lover of the sport who felt quite slighted that he wasn’t personally invited to the event (the pillar of athletic strength we sometimes adoringly label Fat Orange Jesus) providing the challenge gives the final tour of the Amen Corner an even more compelling overtone where rooting interests can’t help but be defined.
One way or the other, it shapes up as an afternoon for the ages. Forget your popcorn. Get your pimento cheese sandwiches ready.
Courage…