When the Masters started in 2025, there was hopeful talk about a confrontation between two of the best players in the world. While that hope was specifically aimed at World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, the ruling Masters champion who is looking for his third green coat over a period of four years, and World No. 2 Rory Mcilroy, Augusta National will treat us to what might be like a tasty last combination on Sunday afternoon.
With Scheffler lurking seven shots on the back, McIlroy and Bryson Deschambeau will be against each other about 18 holes looking for their first green jacket.
It will be a partial rematch of the US Open 2024 in Pinehurst, because it was a proxy war in which McIlroy played a group for Decchambeau, which was in the last combination. Ten months later, their shots are fired over the same tee -boxes and greens, which create an incredible atmosphere in the field of Augusta National.
DCHAMBEAU offered an example of the raw scene that waited both men on Sunday after he had buried a 48-foot Birdie Putt on the 18th to close the third round. He tried every pattern he saw between the green and the clubhouse.
There have been popular champions and strong last combinations at the Masters, but it is safe to say that this will be the most buzz that a Sunday -duo receives since the incredible 2019 triumph from Tiger Woods -and that was completely worn by one of the largest to ever do it.
McILROY and DECHAMBEAU have become closest near real rivals who created the golf landscape between the PGA Tour and Liv Golf. There is respect between them, and neither will the other person, but the best believe that there is a level of pride at the game while they are preparing to fight for this big championship.
Dechambeau came at the top of North Carolina and handed McIlroy his most recent complicated large defeat with one of the largest bunker recordings of 60 meters in history. McIlroy looked quite famous at that shot from the score area and then pulled out the parking lot while he stewed his last big disappointment.
McIlroy now has the chance to put an end to just about every spirit that follows him – all at the same time. The 14-year-old stay for a green jacket (since Leiden after 54 holes in the Masters 2011, his third performance), the 11-year search to complete the career Grand Slam (0-38 in Majors have been going to win the PGA championship 2014), waiting for revenge on Deschambeau-Het for him.
McIlroy understands history and anticipates atmosphere that is waiting for Augusta National on Sunday, given its extensive popularity and Dephambeau’s rise to fame on social media, but Rory is planning to look inside to tackle the external noise.
“The latter group will be a bit noisy and a bit loud,” said McIlroy on Saturday after completing his second consecutive 66. “I will just have to settle down and really try to keep myself in my own little bubble and keep my head down and to keep a sort of approach that I have tried to approach the last three days tomorrow.”
DCCHAMBEAU will, not surprising, have a more external embrace of the sea of customers who will follow that last link over 18 holes.
“It will be the biggest stage that we will have in a long time, and I am enthusiastic about it,” he said. “We both really want to win. Shooting, there are also many great players behind us. I have to take that into account. … With regard to customers, it will be an electric atmosphere.”
It will be a fascinating dichotomy, two of the biggest stars of golf that fight in a place where neither has found the ultimate success. Two crowd of favorites, sometimes overlapping, but with many deep -rooted supporters on both sides, who want to grab the moment themselves.
It will be the ultimate test of McIlroy’s new self -confidence.
“I came to talk here about the most complete version of myself as a golfer,” he said. “I just have to remember that … Regardless of what situation I am in tomorrow, I will be able to treat that.”
The two take enormously different approaches of the enormous crowd that follow the step by step, briefly shot around the golf course. McIlroy is a little more modest, but knows how to get a reaction in his own way out of the crowd, Strutt and bounces after shots he loves. DCCHAMBEAU is much demonstrative, stuck protectors and invites the noise – as he did at No. 16 when he gave the stands down the pond a long look down, almost a more noisy reaction to his birdwatcher in Hopes to send a louder roaring microy to the 17th.
“Rory was a bit forward,” explained Dephambeau. “He was under the age of 12, and I hunted a bit. When I made that, I looked up and said a bit like an explanation [to myself]Such as: ‘I’m still there. I’m going. I’m not going backwards. “”
Augusta National is a particularly unique place to patronize golf while the sounds of the gallery incredibly good in hole to hole travel-now more now that the corridors surrounded with trees have been thinned between some holes.
The reaction to McIlroy’s first nine barrage on Saturday undoubtedly went back to Dechambeau, who tried to bring the favor and warn Rory about his own rise in the last part of the second nine.
The sounds do not have to travel on Sunday.