AUGUSTA, Ga. — From the golf green on the fifteenth gap at Augusta Nationwide, Bryson DeChambeau had a transparent view of what was happening beneath.
On the inexperienced, Rory McIlroy had landed his second shot like a feather and left himself a mere 6 toes for eagle. Even when he may not have seen the ball go in, the roar of the patrons informed DeChambeau all he wanted to know: McIlroy had made his second eagle of the day, this one pushing him to 12 below par and 5 pictures forward of DeChambeau.
With 4 holes left, catching McIlroy was far-fetched, however this was Saturday on the Masters, so the two-time U.S. Open winner merely had one thought on his thoughts.
“Get within the ultimate pairing.”
DeChambeau answered McIlroy’s eagle with a birdie on 15. On the sixteenth gap, he made a brief birdie putt and stopped to look throughout the pond and forward to the seventeenth fairway the place McIlroy was strolling.
“Rory was type of transferring ahead. He was at 12 below, and I used to be type of chasing a bit,” DeChambeau stated. “Once I made that, I regarded up and I stated, type of as an announcement, ‘I am nonetheless right here. I’ll maintain going. I am not going to again down.'”
Right here we go once more.
Almost 10 months after an exhilarating end within the U.S. Open at Pinehurst positioned heartbreak on McIlroy’s plate whereas awarding triumph to DeChambeau, the 2 will head into Sunday with a serious championship within the steadiness. This time, they’re within the ultimate group collectively. This time, it is the Masters on the road.
“I feel I nonetheless should remind myself that there is a lengthy strategy to go, 18 holes,” McIlroy stated after taking pictures the low spherical of the day to guide DeChambeau by two. “I, simply as a lot as anybody else, know what can occur on the ultimate day right here.”
There isn’t a battle between good and evil right here, no feud between LIV and the PGA Tour, merely two of the perfect golfers on the planet making an attempt to wrest the sport’s most coveted garment from each other on the game’s greatest stage.
Their video games are, at instances, related. Each can bend programs to their will with their driver — they’re 1-2 within the discipline in distance this week — they usually usually depend on the volatility of their strategy recreation or placing to find out their scores. However to say that DeChambeau and McIlroy are polar opposites can be an understatement.
All you needed to do to see as a lot was take a look at their respective walks off the 18th inexperienced. McIlroy made par on his final three holes and, as he was serenaded with cheers and standing ovations for his spherical, may muster solely solemn nods to his constituency. DeChambeau completed his spherical with an electrical shock to the system — a 48-foot birdie putt on 18 — and reacted by producing a fist pump earlier than strolling down the rope line and high-fiving everybody he may on his strategy to the scoring space.
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Crowd erupts as DeChambeau drains lengthy birdie on 18
Bryson DeChambeau strikes inside two strokes of Rory McIlroy on the prime of the leaderboard with this lengthy birdie putt on 18.
“It makes me focus extra,” DeChambeau stated of how he interacts with followers. “It is a enjoyable factor that at any time when I really feel like I feed into the gang, particularly the patrons right here, they offer that vitality again, and it is a cool feeling.”
On the golf course (and the vary), DeChambeau chases optimum launch angles and ball velocity numbers, whereas McIlroy continues to harp on the truth that what he is after is just not a quantity or perhaps a rating, however a sense of being in management.
“If I can have that feeling,” McIlroy stated, “and if I can go dwelling tonight and look within the mirror earlier than I am going to mattress and be like, ‘that is the best way I need to really feel after I play golf,’ that, to me, is a victory.”
DeChambeau is a showman who does all the pieces with aplomb and a sure type of fervor that appears to gloss over what’s beneath. McIlroy, for his half, is just not afraid to put naked what’s beneath the floor. He talks of getting anxious vitality, of writing cliché notes in his yardage books to encourage himself throughout a spherical. He decompresses with a John Grisham e-book, an episode of “Bridgerton,” or, like he did on Saturday morning, by watching “Zootopia” together with his daughter whereas making an attempt to remain off his cellphone. DeChambeau is a film man, too; he will watch James Bond, nonetheless.
” my cellphone, I haven’t got an issue with that,” stated DeChambeau, who has a YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of followers.
Whereas DeChambeau talks of feeding off the frenzy of these round him, McIlroy is aware of how a lot he’ll should work Sunday to not simply win however decide to his strategy and demeanor amongst a crowd of patrons whose vitality will inevitably play a task within the proceedings.
“Tomorrow in that ultimate group it is going to be a little bit rowdy and a little bit loud,” McIlroy stated. “I want to remain in my very own little bubble, maintain my head down.”
It is that very same vitality from the crowds that DeChambeau plans on not eschewing however embracing, no less than till he has to hit his subsequent shot.
“It is numerous, like, reacting and being who I’m,” DeChambeau stated. “Which, you guys can say no matter you need, however I am just a bit totally different.”
Sunday will present an ample stage for these variations between the 2 to point out themselves. And but the most important of these is already written within the script: Since McIlroy received his final main, DeChambeau has received two.
There may be nearly no must recount the heartbreaks McIlroy has skilled; they’ve grow to be as a lot part of the material of his story because the 4 majors he received from 2011 to 2014. On the Previous Course in 2022, McIlroy was caught in impartial as Cameron Smith chased him down and received the Claret Jug. Within the 2023 U.S. Open at LACC, he could not engineer a comeback to outlast Wyndham Clark. Pinehurst final yr was probably the most brutal end but. McIlroy missed two quick putts and will solely watch as DeChambeau got up and down for par on 18 to beat him.
Then there’s the 2011 Masters the place, at simply 21 years outdated, McIlroy had a four-shot lead heading into the ultimate spherical earlier than taking pictures 80 and strolling away empty-handed.
“That was 14 years in the past,” McIlroy stated when requested about that match. “I am glad I’ve a brief reminiscence.”
On paper, there are 18 holes between McIlroy and his profession Grand Slam. In actuality, there are 11 years of shut calls and heartbreaks and now, the final big he did not slay a yr in the past, standing in his method. An enormous who’s relishing the possibility to step contained in the cauldron once more, maintain his foot on the gasoline pedal and play spoiler within the encore.
“We each need to win very badly. It may be an electrical environment,” DeChambeau stated. “It’s going to be the grandest stage that we have had in a very long time.”
