Masters Live Updates: Rory McIlroy among crowded leaderboard in final round

Young is still in first place, leading three golfers — including Rory — by two strokes.

Rose miraculously came out of the dirt to make a birdie on No. 7, and now he’s 10-under, two shots behind Cameron Young for first place.

A birdie on No. 8 puts Henley at 10-under, tied with Rory McIlroy for second.

On the par-3 sixth hole, last year's Masters runner-up Justin Rose had a putt for birdie that would have moved him to 10-under and tied with Rory McIlroy for second. But instead of becoming only the third player at double-digit under par, Rose pushed the putt to the right, and ended with par. He stays at 9-under.

Rory missed multiple putts on No. 4, and ended up with a double bogey on the par-3 hole. Cameron Young made par, and he now has a two-shot lead at 12-under par headed into No. 5.

With the final pairing of Rory McIlroy and Cameron Young about to tee off on the fourth hole, they're approaching what has been the most difficult hole on the course during the Masters — the 495-yard, par-4 fifth.

Players have shot an average of 4.3 strokes there this week, making it the hardest, relative to par, on the course. The contour of the green makes it especially challenging.

Rory is back into a tie for first at 12-under par after a birdie putt on the third hole.

After missing his own chance for a birdie, Cameron Young made par to keep pace with McIlroy.

Scheffler started today three shots behind the leaders and after a birdie on the fourth hole is still three shots back from leader Cameron Young. Golf is a psychological sport, and with Rory McIlroy trying to avoid a collapse, and Cameron Young in the white-hot spotlight of Masters Sunday for the first time, don't count out Scheffler, who knows what it's like to close out a win on this course.

Young is now in first place after a birdie on No. 2, while Rory McIlroy made par on the same hole, just missing his birdie putt.

Burns is having a rough start to his final round. He briefly pulled into a tie for the lead with Rory McIlroy and Cameron Young, after carding a birdie on the first hole. But he recorded a double-bogey the second hole to fall back.

He stays at 11-under, tied with Cameron Young and Sam Burns for the lead.

Rory McIlroy and Cameron Young enter the final round sitting at 11-under par. History suggests they will need to stay in in the double-digits under par to win, as each of the last eight champions finished 10-under or better.

Recent winners have finished:

• 2025: Rory McIlroy, -11
• 2024: Scottie Scheffler, -11
• 2023: Jon Rahm, -12
• 2022: Scottie Scheffler, -10
• 2021: Hideki Matsuyama, -10
• 2020: Dustin Johnson, -20
• 2019: Tiger Woods, -13
• 2018: Patrick Reed, -15
• 2017: Sergio Garcia, -9
• 2016: Danny Willett, -5
• 2015: Jordan Spieth, -18

Burns joins Rory McIlroy and Cameron Young at 11-under after a birdie on hole one.

Cameron Young and Rory McIlroy just teed off from the first hole.

They both enter the day 11-under par, and start their final round with a one-shot lead over Sam Burns.

From starting his final round at 3-over, Bradley finished at 3-under after birdies on four of his last six holes.

A score like that won't put Bradley in contention for likely even the top 10, barring some collapses from the later pairings, but just like the birdie-filled rounds by Gary Woodland and Viktor Hovland, who fired rounds of 66 and 67, Bradley's 18 holes showed the rest of the field that this course can facilitate low scores today.

This year’s Masters purse is worth $22.5 million, an $1.5 million increase from last year.

The winner will receive $4.5 million, second place will win $2.43 million, third place will receive $1.53 million and fourth place will win $1.08 million.

The rest of the finishers will receiver under $1 million. Whoever finishes 50th — or last — will win $56,700.

Rory McIlroy blowing a six-stroke lead after 36 holes is quite shocking, but also not a completely unique happenstance at Augusta.

In 1996, two-time major winner Greg Norman had a six-stroke lead entering Sunday, and lost his lead over the course of the final round, ultimately finishing second to Nick Faldo.

Unfortunately for Rory McIlroy, blowing a six-stroke lead at the Masters is not completely shocking. The golfer has a history of poor finishes in majors, including...

In 2011, McIlroy famously led by three shots headed into the back nine, but starting with the 10th hole he went triple bogey, bogey and double bogey to lose the lead.

In 2018, McIlroy was seven-under in the third round, but was nine shots worse Sunday when he was in the final pairing with Patrick Reed.

In 2024, McIlroy had a two-stroke lead over Bryson DeChambeau with four holes to play at the U.S. Open, but bogeyed three of the remaining holes to finish in second.

What started as a field with six amateurs was trimmed to zero after all shot worse than 4-over par through 36 holes and missed the cut. It's the second consecutive year that no amateurs have made the weekend at the Masters. It means that no amateur will be invited to Butler Cabin at the tournament's finale to join the Masters champion in his green-jacket celebration, and no amateur will win the "silver cup," given to the low amateur.

Rose, the ninth-ranked golfer in the world, enters Sunday three strokes behind first place.

Last year, Rose was seven shots behind Rory McIlroy entering the final round, and made up the deficit to force a playoff, which Rose ultimately lost.

Rose has a flair for the dramatic at Augusta. He’s finished second three times, and he’s one of only two golfers (along with Ben Hogan) to lose two playoffs at the Masters.

Young had eight birdies, plus a bogey, to move up into the co-leader position.

By starting the day at 1-over, Viktor Hovland was among the earliest to tee off Sunday, but he's shown what is possible on the course today after firing seven birdies through his first 13 holes. He stands at 6-under currently.

After winning the Masters in 2025, Rory McIlroy was back in the lead after the first round. But staying in contention is difficult, even for past champions, as Masters history shows.

Only three previous winners have ever defended their titles by winning a second consecutive green jacket. Jack Nicklaus did it in 1965-66, Nick Faldo in 1989-90, and the last was Tiger Woods, in 2001-02.

"If you’re going to win two years in a row, you’ll find conditions you like and maybe you don’t find conditions you like, but you’ve got to adjust to both of those," Nicklaus told reporters this week. "I think Rory is talented enough to be able to play it. Rory’s got the monkey off his back, and I think he has a very, very good chance to repeat."

To Nicklaus's point, after McIlroy's opening round he said that having won last year allowed him to play more freely.

"I said this when I came in on Tuesday, I think winning a Masters makes it easier to win your second one. I do," McIlroy told reporters. "It’s hard to say because there’s still shots out there that you feel a little bit tight with, and you just have to stand up and commit to making a good swing and not worry about really where it goes.

"I think it’s easier for me to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go to the Champions Locker Room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day."

After teeing off from the first hole at Augusta National on Thursday as the honorary starters of the Masters, Tom Watson, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus held a joint news conference to field questions about the state of the game. One question concerned the state of this course, specifically, whether they would change one hole if they could.

"I’d fill in the creek in front of No. 12," Watson said to laughs from reporters.

That creek, of course, is Rae's Creek, the little body of water that has played a big role in the outcome of past tournaments.

"Good move," Nicklaus replied.

"That’s the critical hole on the golf course, to be honest with you, and I think everybody in this room understands that," said Watson, who had hit balls into the creek "too many times."

But the conversation quickly became a discussion of the hole, its history and how to play it. Let's pick up the back-and-forth here.

GARY PLAYER: "It’s a great example for golf architects to realize you don’t have to make the holes all that long. That’s an 8-iron, and it’s crippled more people than polio. This hole, it’s really some hole. The most miracle of all time, when Fred Couples stuck on the bank. If you think of everybody, look what happened when Tiger won the last time. Three guys came along with double bogeys.

"And how about Jordan Spieth?"

TOM WATSON: "It’s a great hole."

GARY PLAYER: "Jordan Spieth might have hurt his career, a 70. He might have had a four- or five-shot lead going into that hole. I think the secret of that hole is always to -- funny enough, Bobby Jones said this to me, make your pin at the back of the green, and there’s a lot of merit to that.

"I knocked it in the hole from the bunker one year. You can’t knock it in from the water unless you’ve got a helluva underwater stroke."

Lowry's hole-in-one Saturday was the first at the Masters since 2022, and only the seventh to occur all-time on the par-3 sixth hole.

Remarkably, this wasn't Lowry's first ace at the Masters. He also made one in 2016, on the 16th hole. In all, this was the fifth hole-in-one of his career.

"It gives you obviously a huge kind of boost,” Lowry told reporters. "You go from 6-under to 8-under, and then all of a sudden, you’re only four back. It’s getting real now."

Here is some of what McIlroy said to reporters in a press conference following his 1-over par third round, which eliminated the six-stroke lead he had headed into Saturday.

On his overall play in the third round: “This golf course has a way of, when you’re not quite feeling it, you struggle. You have to dig deep.”

On his plan for Sunday: “I’d like to think that I’ll play a little bit freer and I’ll play, you know, like I’ve already got a green jacket, which I do. Sometimes I just have to remind myself of that. I wish I was a few shots better off, but I’m comfortable. ... I just know I need to be better tomorrow to have a chance.”

Young shot a 7-under third round to move into a first-place tie with Rory McIlroy headed into the final round. Here’s what to know about Young...

• In 2021-22, Young was named the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, finishing as the runner-up in five tournaments that season.
• Young has won only two tournaments in his PGA Tour career.
• Young is currently the third-ranked player on the Tour.
• Young’s best finish at the Masters is seventh, which he did in 2023. His best finish at a major is second, which he achieved at the 2022 Open Championship.

After torching the course to end the second round, Rory McIlroy didn't get under par again until the 10th hole of his third round, and finished 1-over for the day, standing at 11-under.

"I have to look at the positives, even though there aren’t that many to take today," McIlroy told reporters. "I did bounce back. I hit some good shots coming in. I’m in a great position. I just know I need to be better tomorrow to have a chance."

That slower start allowed the rest of the field to cut into what had been a 6-shot lead to start the day. The day's biggest mover was Cameron Young, whose eight birdies led to a 65 that has him now tied for first with McIlroy. They will tee off at 2:25 p.m. ET in Sunday's final pairing.

For Young, it's an incredible rebound considering he started the tournament 4-over — through his first seven holes. He has finished in the top-10 at the Masters in two of the last three years, so he's played well on the course. But the pressure of a Masters Sunday is a different animal.

One shot behind the co-leaders is Sam Burns, who has been hanging around the lead since the very first day.

According to The Scotsman, Scottish player Robert MacIntyre was reprimanded by Augusta National officials for his behavior following his opening-round 80 Thursday. MacIntyre was caught on camera flipping a middle finger toward the 15th hole amid his quadruple bogey there.

Including ties, the top 50 players after the second round make the cut at the Masters. Inevitably, that cut line — which stood at 4-over this year — leaves several notable players left out. This year, those who did not make the weekend were highlighted by Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Open champion. Others left out:

• Danny Willett, 2016 Masters champion
• Mike Weir, 2003 Masters champion
• J.J. Spaun, the 2025 U.S. Open champion, who had won a PGA Tour event earlier this month
• Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters and 2015 British Open champion
• Bubba Watson, the 2012 and 2014 Masters champion
• Akshay Bhatia, who had matched the cut line with a chip-in birdie on the penultimate hole Friday, only to double-bogey the 18th and final hole of his second round, and miss the cut.

When two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler shot a 2-over 74 in Friday's second round, it ended his streak of 11 consecutive rounds at par or better at this tournament. That streak tied Scheffler, who has never finished outside the top 20 at the Masters, for third-longest all-time.

McIlroy started in the lead at 6-under but two bogeys dropped him to 4-under through 10 holes. That kick-started a hellacious stretch that saw him birdie six of the next eight holes to finish with a round of 66, and move to 12-under for the tournament.

It gave McIlroy a six-shot lead over Patrick Reed and Sam Burns, the largest lead through 36 holes in Masters history.

McIlroy built his lead with excellent putting, averaging 1.42 putts per hole through the second round, which was ahead of the 1.67 average of the field.

Defending champion Rory McIlroy was tied for the lead after the first round after shooting a 5-under 67, his lowest opening round at the Masters in 15 years. Sam Burns, playing his fifth Masters, also shot a 67 thanks to shooting a combined 5-under on the course's four par-5 holes.

Patrick Reed, who won the Masters in 2018, was two shots behind, while two-time Masters winner Scottie Scheffler — the world's No. 1-ranked golfer, was three shots behind the leaders.