\u201cI still have a great chance,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI\u2019m in the final group. That\u2019s where I want to be. I wish I had a little more cushion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to be better tomorrow. If I\u2019m going to win tomorrow I have to be better than I was today.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy, a five-time major winner, hopes to match Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo as the only back-to-back winners of the green jacket.<\/p>\n
Third-ranked Young, last month\u2019s Players Championship winner, got off to a scorching start with birdies on five of the first 10 holes. He overcame a watery bogey at 15 by curling in a 27-foot birdie putt at the par-three 16th.<\/p>\n
As a result, the 28-year-old American has a prime chance for his first major title.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere certainly is no lead that\u2019s safe out here but Rory loves it here and no one would be surprised if he had shot 65,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those times that if he doesn\u2019t, we have to take advantage and I got myself here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Irishman Shane Lowry aced the 173m par-three sixth hole with a 7-iron on his way to a 68 that left him in fourth on 207, one stroke ahead of Australian Jason Day and England\u2019s Justin Rose.<\/p>\n
Lowry, the 2019 British Open winner, became the first Masters player with multiple holes-in-one, having aced the 16th in the final round in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s wild,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cYou don\u2019t ever expect to make a hole-in-one. I just couldn\u2019t believe it. You\u2019re out there and you\u2019re in the hunt at the Masters and you\u2019re making hole-in-one. It\u2019s pretty cool. It was obviously amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
World number one Scottie Scheffler fired a bogey-free 65 – his lowest career Masters round – to stand four off the lead on 209 alongside China\u2019s Li Haotong, who also found water on his way to shooting 69.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put myself in position,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI just need to get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy made double bogey at the 11th when his approach sailed left into a pond and after a bogey at the par-three 12th, his lead had vanished in Amen Corner.<\/p>\n
McIlroy responded with a 5.8m birdie putt at the 14th and drove the green in two at the par-five 15th to set up a tap-in birdie only for a bogey at 17 to drop him back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew today wasn\u2019t going to be easy,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cThe quality of the chasing pack was very good and a lot of guys played their best golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rose, a three-time Masters runner-up hoping for a green jacket at age 45, went from seven adrift to three back and hopes for a final round like last year when he made 10 birdies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to take a special round tomorrow, so there\u2019s a chance, which is great,\u201d Rose said. \u201cI\u2019m going to try to channel a bit of last year and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Masters leaderboard<\/p>\n
-11 Rory McIlroy (NIR), Cameron Young (USA)<\/p>\n
-10 Sam Burns (USA)<\/p>\n
-9 Shane Lowry (IRE)<\/p>\n
-8 Jason Day (AUS), Justin Rose (ENG)<\/p>\n
-7 Scottie Scheffler (USA), Haotong Li (CHN)<\/p>\n
-6 Patrick Cantlay (USA), Russell Henley (USA), Patrick Reed (USA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI still have a great chance,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI\u2019m in the final group. That\u2019s where I want to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,195770,74,1863,53314,13239,11746,195767,5275,4507,7240,17576,58253,38594,111,139,69,1974,35138,18833,29647,2122,195769,213,195768,3755,1865,15391,102,4741],"class_list":{"0":"post-375280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-2246","9":"tag-54hole","10":"tag-after","11":"tag-back","12":"tag-cameron","13":"tag-charged","14":"tag-edge","15":"tag-evaporate","16":"tag-goes","17":"tag-late","18":"tag-lead","19":"tag-low","20":"tag-masters","21":"tag-mcilroy","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-record","26":"tag-rory","27":"tag-round","28":"tag-sees","29":"tag-share","30":"tag-sixstroke","31":"tag-sports","32":"tag-squandering","33":"tag-third","34":"tag-today","35":"tag-wild","36":"tag-with","37":"tag-young"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}