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Rory McIlroy is putting golf fans through another roller coaster of emotions during the Masters' final round.
Entering Sunday with a two-strike lead, McIlroy double-bogeyed on the opening hole. He bounced back with four birdies, extending his lead to five entering the 11th hole.
Things then got uncomfortable at Augusta National Golf Club. McIlroy's seemingly insurmountable lead evaporated after he bogeyed on the 11th, triple-bogeyed on an incredibly unlucky 13th hole, and scored a five on the ensuing par-4 hole.
Now in a tight battle, McIlroy can still salvage his first Masters victory and complete the career major grand slam. But he certainly hasn't made things easy.
ESPN's Mike Greenberg commented on McIlroy's erratic final round on social media.
"This just went from a coronation to potentially one of the most shocking and infamous finishes in Masters history," Greenberg said.
Greenberg wrote that before the tournament finished. Despite Sunday's heart-stopping twists and turns, McIlroy can still secure the green jacket.
If he doesn't, the final round will go down as another late meltdown for a golfer who's gone 11 years without winning a major.
Last June, McIlroy lost a two-shot lead at the U.S. Open by bogeying three times in the final four holes. Bryson DeChambeau capitalized at Pinehurst and entered Sunday in second place, but he's fallen down the Masters leaderboard.
McIlroy is instead fighting Justin Rose and Ludvig Aberg for the green jacket. He momentarily regained a narrow lead with a 15th-round birdie before Rose tied him at -11 apiece.
After all they've witnessed on Sunday, nobody will get too comfortable during McIlroy's final three holes. Fans can watch what's shaping up to be a nail-biting finish to the Masters on CBS.
More must-reads:
- Ranking U.S. Ryder Cup pairings by how much you would hate to play with them
- Keegan Bradley makes Ryder Cup captain’s picks with a surprising twist
- The 'Most 1,000-rushing yard NFL seasons' quiz
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Keegan Bradley makes Ryder Cup captain’s picks with a surprising twist
The biggest question leading up to Keegan Bradley's Ryder Cup captain's picks announcement was whether or not he was going to pick himself to tee it up at Bethpage Black in September. The answer wasn't what we expected. Speaking at his captain's picks news conference on Wednesday morning, Bradley announced he will not be playing for Team USA in the Ryder Cup. Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Cameron Young, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns secured Bradley's six captain's picks for the 2025 event. They will join Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Bryson DeChambeau, Harris English, Xander Schauffele and Russell Henley on the U.S. squad. The news comes as quite a surprise, especially considering reports emerged this week that Bradley was expected to pick himself on Wednesday. Those reports turned out to be false. In fact, they've been false for a while. Bradley admitted the decision to keep himself off the team was made "a while ago." There was a point when he was on the roster—likely after he won the Travelers Championship in June—but he was impressed with how his six captain's picks finished the season. Bradley added that the picks were finalized at least 48 hours before his news conference. Although Bradley is disappointed to miss out on another Ryder Cup as a player, he believes he made the right decision for the team. "I grew up wanting to play Ryder Cups. I grew up wanting to fight alongside these guys. It broke my heart not to play, it really did," Bradley said. "You work forever to make these teams, but, ultimately, I was chosen to do a job. I was chosen to be the captain of this team, and my ultimate goal to start this whole thing was to be the best captain that I could be, and this is how I felt like I could do this. If we got to this point and I felt like the team was better with me on it, I was gonna do that. I was gonna do whatever I thought was best for this team. I know 100 percent for certain that this is the right choice." Luke Donald will announce his six captain's picks for Team Europe on Monday, Sept. 1.
Jerry Jones again proves he shouldn't be making decisions for Cowboys
When it comes to major decisions for the Dallas Cowboys it is always going to be Jerry Jones' way or the highway. The problem with that philosophy, however, is that the Jerry Jones way has proven to be a failure for more than 30 years. It's long past time for him to give up control of the team and hire a real general manager to fix the mess he keeps creating. All of that is back on the front-burner again following Thursday's conclusion of the Micah Parsons saga, with the All-Pro superstar getting traded to the Green Bay Packers for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-round picks. In a vacuum, it's not a terrible return. Clark is a legitimate starter on the defensive line -- and a very good player -- and two first-round picks are always going to have some value. But professional sports does not exist in a vacuum. There is always more context at play, and the context here is that an in-his-prime superstar (Parsons), that is one of the biggest game-changers in the league, and a player that was trying to make it work in Dallas, is now playing for somebody else because Jones could not get out of his own way. From the very beginning Jones bungled this contract negotiation, doing the one thing he does best — making himself and Cowboys drama the focal point, and what is best for the team a secondary matter. It's the Jerry Jones way. And it's a losing way. This situation did not have to end up the way it did. There was a perfectly reasonable outcome that would have seen Parsons remain in Dallas throughout the prime of his career and continue to be a focal point of its defense. All it would have taken was a common sense approach and an owner whose concern for the organization outweighed their ego. Every major negotiation with the Cowboys ends up getting drawn out into chaos. It's all part of Jerry's desire to keep him and his team at the top of the headlines. It usually results in him having to pay a player more money than he otherwise would have. And even that may not be a problem for Jerry because he gets to talk about how he negotiated and paid out this huge contract. This time, however, the plan finally burned him. If you want to reach, or if you want to carry Jones' water for him, you might be able to put together a somewhat coherent argument as to how this can work out. Maybe those two first-round picks will pan out in the future. Maybe Clark is a great fit in the middle of Dallas' defensive line. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. The more maybe's you throw in, the more likely it is they are not going to all pan out. Clark is good, but he's not Parsons. He is not as disruptive, he is not as good and he is going to be 30 years old this season while Parsons is still only 26. Two first-round picks looks good on paper, but the Packers are a pretty good team — and will be even better with Parsons — and those picks will likely be in the back half of the first-round. You hope to find a good player with at least one of them, if not both. The odds that either one is as good as Parsons are long. Since winning their last Super Bowl during the 1995 season the Cowboys have consistently been one of the NFL's most mediocre franchises. Never truly awful, but never good. They will make the playoffs semi-regularly, but never go anywhere. They have the longest NFC Championship game drought in the conference. They never get close to the Super Bowl and have not been bonafide contenders in literal decades. A sane owner would look at those results and would have fired multiple general managers for that run. Jones has no one to fire because he is the general manager. And he likes the way he is doing things. The problem is it doesn't work. It hasn't worked. And it won't work. History has proven that.
Jelena Ostapenko responds to racism allegations after post-match confrontation with Taylor Townsend
Former NFL QB shares harsh truth about Browns' Shedeur Sanders
Some previously accused Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski of sabotaging the development of rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders as Stefanski kept Sanders buried on the depth chart throughout the summer. A day after it was learned that Cleveland had agreed to trade Kenny Pickett to the Las Vegas Raiders for a 2026 fifth-round draft pick, Stefanski confirmed that Sanders will enter the Week 1 matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 7 as the Browns' QB3 behind starter Joe Flacco and fellow first-year pro Dillon Gabriel. During a recent chat with Jason Reid of Andscape, former NFL quarterback Akili Smith explained that the tape shows Sanders is behind as it pertains to playing the sport's most important position at the highest level. "If you take some time and break down the tape, and you understand what concepts they’re running, you see that Dillon Gabriel is ahead of Shedeur," Smith said. "No one who looks at the tape of those two and understands what they’re looking at could see it any other way. Gabriel is ahead of him, and a big thing is pocket presence. Shedeur took a sack in [the last preseason] game…it was ridiculous. You had all these people [on social media] blaming the line. He’s dropping back [too far]. He had to step up in the pocket or throw the ball away. It’s one or the other." Sanders took five sacks and completed just 3-of-6 passes for 14 yards in Cleveland's preseason finale versus the Los Angeles Rams on Aug. 23. Meanwhile, Gabriel connected on 12-of-19 passes for 129 yards and a touchdown in that contest. Smith is among those who believe Gabriel’s tape from August "is just better" than what Sanders produced. Sanders took an FBS-high 94 sacks over his final two college seasons before he fell to the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft. In the eyes of some, his play against the Rams showed that it will take time for him to unlearn certain bad habits he picked up over the years. "Anyone who’s got such a long way to go has to keep his nose clean, not turn on the organization and keep working," Smith added. "He has to put everything he has into continuing to get better each day. And that way, even if it doesn’t happen in Cleveland, you’re still giving yourself a chance. You’d show other teams that you want this. You’d show how much it means to you. Then maybe it happens somewhere else." The Browns trading Pickett indicates they're dedicated to continuing their development of Sanders through at least the 2025 season. That said, the potential return of Deshaun Watson is looming over Sanders' status as Flacco prepares to start against Cincinnati.
Micah Parsons will not have to wait long to get his revenge on Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys traded Micah Parsons in a stunning move on Thursday, and the star pass-rusher will now get his revenge game sooner rather than later. The Cowboys have traded Parsons to the Green Bay Packers in exchange for two first-round draft picks and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Many were shocked that Dallas would trade arguably its best player to a longtime NFC rival, but the relationship between the two sides had rapidly deteriorated in recent weeks. Parsons issued a lengthy statement after the trade thanking Cowboys Nation, but it is safe to assume he has some sour feelings toward Jerry Jones and the team's brass. He will have a chance to express those frustrations on the field in Week 4. As luck would have it, the Packers travel to Dallas to face the Cowboys on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" in Week 4. That game will likely be one of the highest-rated of the entire 2025 NFL season. Players often shine in so-called "revenge games" after they are traded. In this instance, the player happens to be a superstar who publicly feuded with his former boss all offseason. Parsons will probably have a little extra juice for Green Bay's Sept. 28 game against Dallas, and who can blame him? Rather than paying him what he wanted, the Cowboys let the four-time Pro Bowl defensive end walk. Parsons' former teammates may want to focus some extra attention on him in Week 4.
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