Graeme Agars: golf correspondent on Rory McIlroy losing his Masters lead

Golf's Masters is no longer a foregone conclusion.

Defending champ Rory McIlroy has seen his record six-shot lead gobbled up on Day 3, and he's now even with American Cameron Young at 11-under-par.

Golf correspondent Graeme Agars joined Piney to discuss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks dB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Golf's Masters no longer a foregone conclusion. Defending champion Rory
McElroy has seen his record six shot lead at the
halfway point completely eaten up. On day three, He's now
even with American Cameron Young at eleven under par. They
are joint leaders. Young has never won a major. Sam

(00:33):
Burns out right third at ten under. Irishman Shane Lowry
shot further back at nine under the card. Graeme ay
Gas is with us from Augusta Graham. This time yesterday
we were basically putting another green jacket onto Rory McElroy.
What happened, man?

Speaker 3 (00:49):
I think Rory was doing the same thing. To be
honest with you, Yeah, I'm asking myself what happened as well?
If you think about it this way, Within those first
thirty minutes of him teeing off, he had gone from
a six shot lead to a two shot lead. That's
because Patrick Reid started with three birdies in a row

(01:11):
and then he rebounded the bit, made a birdie on three,
restored back to twelve and they had a four shot lead,
and then from them on he couldn't find a fairway.
I mean, he was playing a bit like he did yesterday,
and he was getting up and down from all sorts
of places, missing a lot of fairways off the tee.

(01:32):
But everybody else was having a fantastic day. And the
reason was, Jason Day said afterwards, the greens were actually
receptive and taking spin, and they weren't excessively fast. So
Augusta National had not said set the course up to
be nasty. It had allowed the guys to make a
run at it, and everybody except Rory did it. You

(01:54):
had to go all the way down to sixteenth position
to find another player who shot over par, and that
was Tommy Fleetwood and he was plus one. All the
others were either even part or you know seven under
as Cameron Young and Scotti Sheffler shoot a shot. So
the course wasn't hard. It's just that Rory was struggling

(02:19):
again after tea and today he couldn't pull it off
the way he did yesterday.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
You talked about that a lot yesterday, Graham, about his
approach and how it had paid dividends for him, but
of a fearlessness about the way that he attacked the
golf course, not just yesterday, but in the first round
as well. You know, would hindsight's always a wonderful thing,
I know, but would a little bit more caution have
been advisable for Rory in the third round.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah. So his mantra here has been just keeps swinging
and I think he's going to stick with it throughout
the tournament. But you could clearly see his demeanor changed
on the back name when it wasn't working and when
he hit it into the water off eleven after a
dreadful drive, hit the trees up on the right hand

(03:08):
side and bounced back. So he had two hundred and
fourteen yards into a water carry eleventh hole, which is
not an easy hole at the best of times, when
he normally would have had maybe one hundred and thirty
five or one hundred and forty yards in and it'd
be spinning some sort of shot in. So I mean
he really paid the price. Then he carried it to

(03:28):
the next t in bogue twelve, which is pretty easy
to do, and to me, he looked confused and didn't
quite know what to do, so he just kept hammering
away and kept missing fairways. He made a couple towards
the end. But you know, I'm sitting next to Greg Allen,
the Irish board custer, and he said I might sneak

(03:50):
out and take the driver out of his bag open
just let him hit a three woods teeth because he
thinks he'd play a lot better. But you know, I
think he's determined just to play that way and try
and win, and who knows, maybe it will work tomorrow
and maybe it won't. He wasn't happy after the round.
He blew off his press conference invitation, and nobody heard

(04:15):
from him once he left the course.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Such an interesting contrast to yesterday when you told us
how accommodating he was to all of the media. I
guess when you have a six six shot lead at
the halfway stage, you're probably a little more receptive to
some media question. And then when that lead has evaporated,
he says, I still have a great chance. I'm in
the final group. It's where I want to be. Would
he be favorite to win it tomorrow or will what

(04:40):
happened today maybe put a dent in that and it
might be one of the two Americans, or even Shane
Lowry or even someone further back.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, yeah, I really don't know. I think if he
continues with that game plan and maybe it clicks. You know,
it'd be hard to be But don't underestimate Cameron Young.
This guy has been considered somewhat of a prodigy on
the US tool for a number of years now, ninety
four tournaments to win his first one, that was the

(05:09):
Wyndham Tournament towards the end of last year, and with
the confidence that gave him, he then went on won
the Players Championship, which is the PGA too is own major.
And he's full of confidence and he is a great,
great player, and he proved by shitting his best ever
round in Augusta National. Perhaps he's ready. And Sam Burns

(05:32):
has got the game for Augusta. I mean it's built
for him. He's strong off of tea and he's probably
as good a putter as there is on the PGA
Tour right now. Almost Jordan's speachlike, so he's got the weapons.
And Shane Lowry he rarely wants another major, having won

(05:53):
the British Owned for a couple of years ago. And
then there's still people like Jason Davis having a great
tournament at eight under, had four bodies in a row
from the twelfth to day just loves the back nine
of Augusta and Scotty Scheffler. Not many people notice that
he also shot sixty five today and didn't make a
single put on the back name. And afterwards he spoke

(06:16):
under the oak tree up on the hill by the
first he and said another sixty five tomorrow should do it.
He's thinking of winning. He hasn't given up at all.
And if he can shoot sixty five not making any
puts on the back nine, heaven only knows what happens
that they start going in.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Absolutely well, we spoke yesterday about his rather ordinary first
couple of rounds, and you said, well, it's proved that
he's human. He's the kind of golfer, isn't he scot
a shifler. He could well go out and shoot sixty
five tomorrow, couldn't he?

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Again? Well as his target, he thinks fourteen hundred's going
to win. And that's probably not a bad number when
you think about it, because I doubt either Cameron or
Lauri are going to go low. I mean, they might
go seventy sixty nine something like that, but I don't
think they're going to shoot sixty five tomorrow. So you

(07:07):
know it's there for the guys behind, probably as close
a leader board as we've had for a little while,
with everybody sort of packed in there and all sorts
of different stories. You know, you've got the world number
one seemingly playing bad but talking up his chances of winning.
You've got the runaway winner now running in the opposite direction.

(07:30):
And you've got Cam Young full of confidence after finally
delivering on the promise that he's shown on the PGA
two before. And then you've got mister cool Sam Burns,
who doesn't let anything worry him and he's as good
at patter as heres as I said, So you've got
a really good mix there, and I think anything can happen.
There's been a bit on the start. If the leaders

(07:51):
come back, boy, we can have a hell of a day.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
We certainly could. What about the course set up on
day four at Augusta Graham. What typically do we see
from the way the course is set up for the
final round?

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, I make it really hard. They'll tuck the pins
and they'll dry out the greens overnight, they double cut
them in the morning and they may roll on it
again and they can make it much harder than it
was today. As I said Jason Day considered them to
the pleasant because they were taking spin and the speeds
weren't too bad and the pins weren't tucked in silly places.

(08:26):
So I don't know what Augusta wants to do Tomorron.
I suspect they'll leave it reasonably fair with a couple
of tricky pins, maybe on the back night, just to
really test the guys. But I don't think they want
to torture test, and I don't want them. I don't
think they want the lead to come back from eleven
to say nine. I think they're happy, you know, twelve

(08:49):
or thirteen under and maybe fourteen under winning, So I
think they'll be reasonable. Conditions are going to be fantastic,
warm again, just as it was today, and no real
win to worry about, at least in the forecast. So
you know, if you want to win, as Cameron Young
said in his press conference, goodnight, you got to go

(09:09):
out there and earn it. Nobody's going to give it
to you, and that's probably the best way to approach today.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Just to circle back to Rory McElroy to finish, we
know he famously won it last year and broke a
long standing duck at this particular tournament. Do you think
he is, given what happened today and the fact that
he was well off the pace today in terms of
his game in the first two rounds, do you think
the fact that he won it last year will be

(09:36):
a big factor in the way he approaches tomorrow? I
guess conversely, Graham, if he hadn't won it last year,
would there be no chance of him winning it tomorrow?
Because he must just think, well, I'm never going to
win this thing.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, he was starting to get the Greg Normans in going,
you know, as the game to win, but just can't
get it across the line. He tried for eleven years.
I mean, he nearly won it eleven years ago and
blew it on the back nine. He was too young,
he didn't know what he was doing, and then he
struggled mightily until last year. And and there wasn't a
convincing little last year, was it. I Mean, he's all

(10:10):
over the place, and you could see the stress on
his face. And you know, he toughed it out in
the end in the playoffs and played the extra hole
pretty well. So that has to give him confidence. You
know that he's now an eleague player. He's one of
only seven players to you know, one all for the

(10:31):
Grand Slam major tournaments in their career, you know, career
Grand Slam. So he's got to take that. But you know,
he has to re calibrate because I think he thought
with a six shot lead he could just continue to
play aggressively and you know, shut everybody else out. But
he opened the door and gave him all personal invitations today.

(10:53):
It's going to have to work tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Love it, Grime, love your turn of phrases. Always great
to Chatty, Thanks for thanks for joining us across New Zealand.
Grahame Aga is the one and only after the third
round at Augusta where we now have joint leaders. Rory
McElroy for just joining us and catching up, who had
a record six shot lead after two rounds, is now
joint leader of the tournament with the American Cam Young,

(11:19):
who shot a terrific seven under par sixty five today.
So Young and McElroy will be in the final group
tomorrow at eleven under. Just tucked in behind them is
another American in Sam Burns. He is ten under for
the tournament. Shane Lowry is nine under. Then you get
down to Jason Day and Justin Rose, both of who

(11:39):
are eight under the card, so they're tightly grouped. The
tightly group Day shot four under today Rose three under.
And then you arrive at the world's number one golfer
Scottie Scheffler, who shot seventy and seventy four in his
first two rounds and then tore it up today although
as you heard Grahames hit him make a part on

(12:02):
the last on the back nine, he had to rely
on the other parts of his game. But he shots
seven under to move to seven under, so he is
within striking distance as well. And as just to Graham say,
Scottisheffler thinks fourteen under will win it, so all he
has to do, all he has to do is go

(12:22):
out and shoot seven under again. Any proof today that
he can do just that.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
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