Gusty winds and firm putting surfaces challenged the world’s best players for a second straight day at Augusta National.
Conditions should be slightly calmer on Sunday, but that will not take away from the excitement of the proceedings.
Here are the best numbers to know from Round 3 of the 88th Masters Tournament.
1. Scottie Scheffler holds the 54-hole lead at the Masters for the second time in the last three years. In 2022, the new world number 1 led by three shots before Sunday. His pad is only one shot this time, but the task of chasing him seems more difficult. Two years ago, Scheffler was a hot player on the PGA Tour, but he was mostly unproven in the Sunday cauldron at the majors. He’s now a seasoned big winner who, incidentally, hasn’t shot a round over par in an official tournament since August.
Scottie leads the Masters even if his biggest weapon doesn’t win. Scheffler, who has dominated the tour with his iron play for the past three seasons, is outside the top 20 after three rounds of stroke-winning approach. He hit the same number of greens in regulation this week as 61-year-old Vijay Singh (34 for 54), but he will be part of the final pairing on Sunday.
And although he was eye-rolling yet again (second in the field in strokes gained off the tee), his stellar touch around Augusta’s infamous greens continued to help him save par after par. Scheffler leads the pack in strokes gained around the green, gaining well over a stroke and a half in that metric each day.
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2. Scheffler is making only his fifth career start at the Masters. Only one player has won the Masters twice in five or fewer attempts: Horton Smith, who won two of the first three tournaments ever played, in 1934 and 1936. At just 27 years old, Scheffler would be the fourth youngest player to win the Masters . Masters a second time, behind only Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Seve Ballesteros. He would also join Woods as the only man to win the Players Championship and a green jacket in the same season.
This is the seventh time since the creation of the Official World Golf Ranking in 1986 that the highest-ranked player in the world has held the 54-hole lead at the Masters. Five of the previous six have won, including Scheffler two years ago. The only exception was Greg Norman in 1996, who blew the largest 54-hole lead in men’s major championship history (six shots).
3. Despite a string of three consecutive top-20 finishes at Augusta National, Collin Morikawa entered this year’s Masters without much fanfare. His only top 10 finish on the tour in 2024 came at the season-opening event in Maui. He ranked outside the top 75 this season in strokes gained approach, a far cry from the top three he had in that stat in each of the previous four seasons. It fell from eighth on average last year to 143rd in 2024.
But somewhere between San Antonio and Augusta, Morikawa rediscovered his world champion self. He’s fifth in the field this week in approach shots gained, but his putting backed him up Saturday, as he caught more than three field shots on the greens. He also hit more than 88 percent of the fairways at Augusta National this week, a big improvement over his season average so far (63.5 percent).
4. Also 27 years old, Morikawa already has PGA and Open Championship trophies to his credit. If he wins on Sunday, he would be only the fourth man to win the Masters, PGA and Open before the age of 30, joining Woods, Nicklaus and Gary Player, who have all completed the grand slam. He would be the sixth player to win three Grand Slam rounds before the age of 28, joining the previous three mentioned, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth.
Sunday’s final pairing includes two players under 30 who have won major championships. It will be the first time that Sunday’s final pairing at the Masters will consist of two major winners under 30 since 1965, when it was Nicklaus and Player. Last year’s final pairing of Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka also included players who had already won majors, but Koepka was 32 years old. For the second year in a row, a unique blend of youth and success decorates the end of the Sunday scoresheet.
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5. Despite playing his last 32 holes without a birdie, Max Homa enters the final round just two shots behind Scheffler. Homa is the first player since Ernie Els in 2000 to fail to make a single birdie or eagle in the third round of the Masters and still be in the top three heading into the final round.
Homa has been fantastic tee-to-green all week and leads the field in strokes gained on approach and greens in regulation with a round to play. But after gaining more than 3.5 strokes in the first round, Homa has been slightly better than the field average over the past two days (+0.25 per round).
The last man to win a major championship without making a third-round birdie was Curtis Strange at the 1989 US Open. If you tip your tin foil hat that way, there are some intriguing similarities between the players: Strange was an American from 33-year-old who was in solo third place after a 73 in the third round that week. Homa, 33, shot 73 on Saturday and sits in solo third place.
6. Ludvig Aberg is no ordinary Masters rookie. He’s already the first man to make his major championship debut after playing in a Ryder Cup, so why not compete for the jacket in his first Masters on Sunday? The Texas Tech product, who is second to Scheffler in birdie average on tour since turning professional, is just three back entering the final round. He relied on his power (fourth in strokes gained off the tee) and putting (second) this week, offering a glimpse of an immense talent that will prowl the fairways for decades to come.
Only three men since 1900 have won in their debut at a major championship: Francis Ouimet at the 1913 US Open, Ben Curtis at the 2003 Open Championship and Keegan Bradley at the 2011 PGA. No one has done it at the Masters . The last Masters debutant to win was Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
7. Bryson DeChambeau salvaged a shaken second nine Saturday with a one-hole birdie at the 18th to sit four behind. Despite the miraculous end to his day, Bryson’s score, greens hit in regulation and strokes gained with the ball fell on each of the last two days after a brilliant opening round of 65. Despite being four behind is far from insurmountable, it is generally too much. far to climb at Augusta National. Only two of the last 27 winners have been four shots or more away before the final round.
If DeChambeau wins, he would be only the fifth American player since 1960 to win the Masters and the US Open before the age of 31, joining Arnold Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods and Spieth.
8. In Rounds 2 and 3 combined, there were only three rounds in the 60s: Aberg in Round 2, and Morikawa and Chris Kirk on Saturday. That ties for the second-fewest scores under 70 at Augusta National in the two middle rounds over the past 50 years. The combined second and third round score average of 74.77 was the fourth highest of its kind over the same period.
In the third round, the most difficult holes relative to par were the last two. This is the only time in the last 30 Masters where the two most difficult holes in a single round were the 17th and 18th.
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Scottie Scheffler, 54-hole solo leader at the Masters
9. A day after breaking Augusta National’s consecutive cut record, Woods shot an 82, by far the highest round of his Masters career. Woods capped the first nine holes with double bogeys at 7 and 8, then made bogeys on four of his final five holes heading home. One of his two birdies came at the 13th, the 61st time he has birdied or eagled in a tournament.
Woods is scheduled to play Sunday with amateur Neal Shipley, an Ohio State graduate student who finished second at last summer’s U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills. This will be Tiger’s 100th career Masters round, a milestone only 20 other players have reached all time.
ten. Twenty-eight of the last 33 Masters winners came from the final group on Sunday. Each of the last 27 to win was by four shots or fewer, and the last 12 were all by three shots. Only one Masters winner has left the top 10 before the final round: Art Wall in 1959 (tied 13th).
The largest final round deficit overcome to win was Jack Burke Jr.’s eight-shot deficit in 1956. Since 2000, 96 percent of men’s soccer major winners have been within four shots with a round to play.
(Top photo by Scottie Scheffler: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)