The Masters 2025 live updates: Rory McIlroy is one round away from immortality at Augusta

LEADERBOARD

-12 Rory McIlroy (tee-time 7.30)

(tee-time 7.30) -10 Bryson DeChambeau (7.30)

Bryson DeChambeau (7.30) -8 Corey Connors (7.20)

Corey Connors (7.20) -6 Justin Rose (1), Patrick Reed (7.20), Ludvig Aberg (7.10)

Justin Rose (1), Patrick Reed (7.20), Ludvig Aberg (7.10) -5 Collin Morikawa (4), Sungjae Im (3), Jason Day (7.10), Scottie Scheffler (7.00), Shane Lowry (7.00)

KEY READS

Brilliant drive down the first by Shane Lowry, leaving himself 164 yards from the right side of the fairway into the green. Up ahead, Collin Morikawa has probably left this too late altogether but nonetheless, he has birdied two of his first three holes to move to -5.

Justin Rose has hit a beauty to the first green and will have around eight feet for birdie. Shane Lowry is walking to the first tee. This is all getting very real now.

Matsuyama’s freehweeling round comes to an end with a bogey on the final hole. That’s an annoying way to see out his tournament but he’ll sign for a 66. There’s a score out there, as the cliché goes. McIlroy will have to make sure he’s the one who finds it.

Rory speaks! He spent the morning watching sport, he tells Amanda Balionis on Sky.

“Fortunately, Sunday mornings are good for sport. So I watched Carlos Alcaraz win tennis in Monte Carlo, watched some soccer, watched a little bit of F1. So just tried to keep myself distracted with other sports I guess.

“But then once you get to the golf course, things sort of settle down. You get into your routine, you get going, you do what’s familiar, which is comforting. That’s all I’ve been really doing, just trying to go through my strategy for the day and trying to show up with the same attitude that I’ve had for the last three days.

“I’m certainly not expecting to get off to that start again (six consecutive 3s). I think it’s just going out and trying to hit the first fairway, hit the first green and go from there. I keep saying it - the only thing I can do is control the moment in front of me. That starts with the first tee shot and if I can just do a good job of controlling those moments thereafter, I’ll be in a good spot.”

The career Grand Slam is such a niche golf concern - right up until the point where it becomes tanglibly possible. If McIlroy wins tonight, he will join just five other men in the history of the game to have won all four majors.

You’re talking Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogna, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen. The gods of the game.

Here’s how they did it.

[ Rory McIlroy aims to enter golf’s pantheon: here are the five men who have won the grand slamOpens in new window ]

Rory McIlroy is the first player to hold the 54-hole lead in the major he needs to complete the grand slam since Tiger Woods led by 6 entering the final round of the 2000 Open. — Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) April 13, 2025

Still a good hour away from McIlroy and DeChambeau going out on the course. Among the early starters, the only man who’s made any shape at all on the leaderboard is 2021 champion Hideki Matsuyama. He’s -6 for his round today playing the 17th. That’s enough to haul him up through the field to -2, a tie for 17th.

Here we go, then. The day of days is here. Rory McIlroy is going to finally win the Masters tonight. Either that, or he is going to suffer one of the crushing disappointments of a career that hasn’t exactly been lacking them. One way or the other, it’s going to be impossible to look away.

Welcome to the final round of the 2025 Masters.

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