2025 Masters leaderboard: Rory McIlroy’s stellar Round 3 finally puts green jacket, career grand slam in sight

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Perhaps no one in the history of Augusta National Golf Club has taken “Moving Day” more seriously than Rory McIlroy did Saturday. Becoming the first player in course history to score 3s across his opening six holes while charging to the top of the leaderboard, the four-time major winner — more than a decade after winning his last — has taken a two-shot lead at the 2025 Masters on the back of a 6-under third round for the ages.

McIlroy went 5 under across his first five holes, adding a stunning eagle on the 15th as he moved to 12 under for the tournament and 11 under across his last 27 holes starting with the second nine on Friday. He boomed his driver, lofted his irons and made crucial putts with regularity. Outside of a brief lapse when bogeys fell on the 8th and 10th — a stretch that might have derailed his effort in the past — he steadied himself quickly with a birdie on the 13th and his second eagle of the day on the 15th.

The Northern Irishman played not just near-perfect golf but major championship-winning golf on a calm, breezy Saturday in Augusta.

Going to bed with the 54-hole lead at the Masters for the second time in his career, McIlroy will surely be thinking back to 2011 when he entered Sunday with a four-shot advantage only to shoot an 8-over 80 — to this day his worst round at Augusta National.

But this 35-year-old Rory is not that 21-year-old Rory, and this 2025 Masters is not that 2021 Masters.

In the 14 years since, McIlroy has held 54-hole leads and four major championships. He’s won them all, the last infamously coming at the 2014 PGA Championship given it’s the last major he’s captured in his exemplary career.

McIlroy has been chasing an elusive fifth major, prestigious green jacket and even more exclusive career grand slam ever since. He’s finished 0-38 in majors and 0-10 in Masters with excruciating second-place finishes four times overall and once at Augusta National (2022).

There have been coughed-up fourth-round leads, come-from-behind finishes that fell short and every type of close-call in between.

In none of those tournaments did he have a 27-hole stretch at a course like this. McIlroy on Saturday posted his second career major round with multiple eagles, his first since that 2024 Open. He has finished 8 under across six par-5s on Friday and Saturday.

This after entering the Masters off to the hottest start to a PGA Tour season in his career having already won two tournaments before the calendar turned to April.

There is a star-studded leaderboard lurking. Bryson DeChambeau, who pulled the 2024 U.S. Open out of McIlroy’s grasp less than nine months ago, sits two back at 10 under after a closing hole-out birdie that sent the patrons into a frenzy. DeChambeau was even for the day until the closing stretch when he made birdies on three of his last four holes to put the pressure on McIlroy.

Unlike the U.S. Open, in which DeChambeau held a three-stroke lead after 54-hole lead, it will be McIlroy entering Sunday’s final round as the man to catch.

Corey Conners, McIlroy’s playing partner Saturday, is four behind after posting three straight birdies from Nos. 8-10. 2018 Masters winner Patrick Reed and 2024 Masters runner-up Ludvig Åberg are both six back, while 2024 Masters winner Scottie Scheffler, 18- and 36-hole leader Justin Rose and McIlroy’s fellow Northern Irishan, Shane Lowry, are five behind.

Given the stacked first page of this leaderboard, it’s clear McIlroy will be required to earn this Masters, his green jacket and the career grand slam on Sunday. The way he’s playing, are you ready to doubt that he’ll do it?

Watch the 2025 Masters all day Sunday with expanded coverage from CBS Sports. The newly extended broadcast airs from 12-2 p.m. on Paramount+ before shifting to CBS from 2-7 p.m. Masters Live follows the best in the world across Featured Groups, Amen Corner and Holes 15 & 16. Check into those streams live across Paramount+, CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports App.