Rory McIlroy: Back-to-back Masters champion wants more majors as European record nears
To win last year, McIlroy needed to beat Justin Rose, who finished third Sunday with a two-up lead going into the turn in a sudden-death playoff after coming one short on the 72nd hole.
And this time he didn’t make it too easy for himself. The player, who burned up the field to gain a record lead of six shots after 36 holes, reached a score of over 73 on Saturday.
Northern Ireland’s McIlroy, who was tied with Young entering Sunday, put the pressure on himself with a sloppy double-bogey par five in the fourth after drilling a three from eight feet.
He made another shot at the par-three sixth, but after mixing four birdies into a par seven to take a two-stroke lead over world number one Scheffler heading into the last, he said his “biggest stress” on Sunday was not knowing where his ball was going after it swung to the right and into the trees on the 18th.
“He can go anywhere. He can be anywhere,” added the world number two, who is level with Americans Phil Mickelson and Lee Trevino in six majors.
“I had a couple more. I thought my second putt on 11 was too big to not make bogey there.”
Despite falling behind Young and Rose and moving up the leaderboard with Scheffler, McIlroy emphasized that he never felt like he was out of luck.
“If I hadn’t birdied the seventh and eighth holes, I would have started to push a little bit,” added the 36-year-old, who is the sixth winner of the wire-to-wire Masters.
“But I think birdies at seven and eight, Justin’s bogeys at 11 and 12, and then my birdies at 12, I never felt like I was out of it. I never felt like I had to put pressure.”
