Whichever side you were on, there was no question at all that it was a mouthwatering prospect going into the final day of The Masters, with Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau set to tee it up in the last pairing out on the course.
Rory McIlroy put himself on pole position to win The Masters after posting two rounds of 66 across Friday and Saturday. It was the first time since 2011 that the Northern Irishman had led going into the final round at Augusta National.
The question was who he would end up playing alongside. Ultimately, it was a familiar foe, with Bryson DeChambeau making birdie on three of his final four holes on Saturday to join McIlroy in the last group on Sunday.
There was plenty for McIlroy’s fans to worry about. DeChambeau had the momentum, with his putt on 18 sending the patrons into a frenzy. And of course, it was impossible to ignore what happened at Pinehurst last year.
How Rory McIlroy would have performed on Sunday at The Masters playing alongside Shane Lowry
It did appear that McIlroy may be about to be overawed by the occasion. He made a double bogey on the first hole, and fell one behind the LIV Golf star on the second.
However, McIlroy was able to turn his round around; obviously going on to win in a playoff with Justin Rose.
He did not look at all comfortable across the day. Most of that would have been because of the significance of winning The Masters. But perhaps playing alongside DeChambeau was a factor.
Speaking on 5 Clubs, Johnson Wagner suggested one player McIlroy would have preferred to play alongside, and one which would have been worse for him than having DeChambeau there.
“He definitely would have preferred Corey Conners. I think there was a moment when Shane Lowry almost could have been in that group with him too, and I think Shane Lowry would have been the worst possible pairing. I think it would have been too comfortable,” he said.
“I was really rooting for Corey, because Corey is an awesome ball-striker. He’s quiet, but he’ll talk to you, and you want to talk to him. Corey’s a great dude, and you could tell the two of them, they gave each other their space but also if one of them wanted to talk, they were there. And it was a very comfortable pairing.”
Why McIlroy seemed to benefit from playing alongside Bryson DeChambeau
It is interesting that Wagner believes that Conners would have been the ideal playing partner for McIlroy, instead of Lowry or DeChambeau. The Canadian was so impressive around Augusta once again, but he arguably lacks that ruthless edge right now – particularly on the greens – to win a major.
McIlroy saw The Open Championship snatched from his grasp in 2022 while playing alongside Viktor Hovland. That would have been a friendly pairing, but neither player got a lot of momentum going throughout the day, and McIlroy admitted afterwards that he was almost taken by surprise by Cam Smith‘s charge.
“I think I did a really good job of that. I didn’t — you know, I could see what Viktor was doing alongside me, but I wasn’t really concerned about what anyone else was doing. I was just doing my own thing,” he said.
“It was working well until I needed to respond to what Cam was doing out there. Coming down on 14, I knew that at that point Cam had birdied to go to 19 and I was at 18, so I knew that I needed to respond. I just couldn’t find the shots or the putts to do that.”
Admittedly, DeChambeau’s performance would have given McIlroy little to feed off as he posted a 75 on Sunday. But he was someone who had that extra gear that someone like Connors is yet to show he has. So McIlroy was always going to have to be on his toes, especially as he would have known that getting across the line was never going to be easy.
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