{"id":601081,"date":"2026-04-12T00:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T00:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/601081\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T00:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T00:56:11","slug":"cameron-young-jason-day-apply-pressure-to-rory-mcilroy-in-third-round-of-masters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/601081\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Young, Jason Day apply pressure to Rory McIlroy in third round of Masters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A chaotic 30 minutes have completely changed the complexion of the 2026 Masters as defending champion Rory McIlroy surrendered his mammoth lead in the third round.<\/p>\n

McIlroy took a record six-stroke lead into Saturday’s (local time) play at Augusta but it had been reduced to two by the time he made the turn after an even-par front nine.<\/p>\n

It evaporated completely when American Cameron Young tied him with a clutch birdie putt on the 16th hole, while McIlroy bogeyed the par-three 12th to fall out of top spot.<\/p>\n

Young finished a round of 65, the combined best of the tournament thus far, to hold the outright by one stroke when he signed his card.<\/p>\n

McIlroy tied him on 11-under and reclaimed his solo spot atop the leaderboard with huge birdies on 14 and 15, but ended up sharing the lead at 11-under after a bogey at 17 completed a 1-over 73 third round.<\/p>\n

“The quality of the chasing pack is obvious. There’s a lot of guys in with a chance tomorrow,” McIlroy said.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport will have live blog coverage of the fourth round of the Masters from 3:30am (AEST) on Monday.<\/p>\n

“I’m still tied for the best score going into tomorrow, so I can’t forget that, but I do know I’m going to have to be better if I want to have a chance to win.”<\/p>\n

It was a stunning comeback from Young, who won the Players Championship last month<\/a>, considering he started the day eight strokes off the lead.<\/p>\n

\"Cameron<\/p>\n

Cameron Young won the prestigious Players Championship last month. (Getty Images: Jared C. Tilton)<\/p>\n

If Young were to win, he would be the first Masters winner to do so after trailing by more than five shots at the halfway mark of the tournament.<\/p>\n

He was paired with Australian Jason Day, who carded four straight birdies from 11 to 15 to apply the pressure before finding a bunker and handing a shot back on the 16th.<\/p>\n

But the Aussie’s round of 68 was enough to keep him in the mix at 8-under, tied for fifth and three strokes back heading into the last day’s play.<\/p>\n

“I feel like the guys that are leading right now have all the pressure,” Day said.<\/p>\n

“I’m the chaser. Usually the chasers don’t really have a lot of the pressure. Guys at the top of the leaderboard always are trying to defend the lead, whereas I’m pushing forward trying to cut into the lead.<\/p>\n

“I feel good about my game. I feel very happy with where things are. I’m looking forward to the challenge at least.<\/p>\n

“If I can get myself around the lead on the back side, I’ll be very pleased.”<\/p>\n

It was clearly Young’s day, as evidenced by his tee shot on 13 flying wide left before clattering into a tree and bouncing back into a lovely spot on the fairway.<\/p>\n

“Oh, how nice is that now,” Day was heard saying.<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/p>\n

Jason Day hit four straight birdies from holes 11 to 15. (Getty Images: Jared C TIlton)<\/p>\n

Young found the water and bogeyed the 15th to kick off a game-changing passage of play between himself and McIlroy, but after taking the lead got another kind ricochet off a tree on the 17th.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, McIlroy’s wayward long game finally caught up with him.<\/p>\n

He hit the water on the 11th and double bogeyed after missing a six-foot putt, went way left on the 12th for bogey and once again had to hack out of the pine needles to the right of the fairway on 13.<\/p>\n

\"Rory<\/p>\n

Despite an excellent tournament, Rory McIlroy has consistently missed fairways off the tee. (Getty Images: Hector Vivas)<\/p>\n

He managed to save par after moving spectators and a generator out of the way, but it was a big change from the second round, when he went six-under through the last seven holes to open up a massive gap on the field.<\/p>\n

“You can’t be relying on your short game and putting for four days in a row with this amount of intensity and pressure,” 2008 Masters winner Trevor Immelman said in commentary.<\/p>\n

“The long game has unravelled even more for him today.”<\/p>\n

One man whose long game did not unravel was McIlroy’s mate Shane Lowry, who delivered the highlight of the third round with an ace on the par-three 16th hole during a round of 68 that left him fourth at 9-under.<\/p>\n

World number one Scottie Scheffler also surged \u200cback into contention with an eagle at the second and five birdies in a bogey-free 65.<\/p>\n

After starting the day 12 shots behind \u200cMcIlroy, \u200bScheffler moved within five \u2060of the lead and said he remained firmly in the hunt.<\/p>\n

“I don’t feel like I’m out of this tournament,” the two-time Masters winner said.<\/p>\n

Adam Scott, the 2013 winner, is the only other Australian still in the tournament and sits in a tie for 36th after his first under-par round left him 2-under heading into the final day.<\/p>\n

Scott will start his final round alongside England’s Marco Penge at 12:45am AEST Monday, with Day alongside last year’s playoff loser Justin Rose in the third last group from 4:03am.<\/p>\n

Lowry and third-placed Sam Burns tee off at 4:14am, with McIlroy and Young from 4:25am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A chaotic 30 minutes have completely changed the complexion of the 2026 Masters as defending champion Rory McIlroy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5487,64,129216,63,34908,5499,24495,756,85,184785],"class_list":{"0":"post-601081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-adam-scott","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-augusta","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-cameron-young","13":"tag-jason-day","14":"tag-masters","15":"tag-rory-mcilroy","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-third-round"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}