Former champion Hideki Matsuyama showed the chasing pack what was possible with a superb 66 in the final round of the 89th Masters.
Matsuyama began the day on four over par but birdied the third, sixth, eighth and ninth to cover the front nine in 32, and picked up further shots on the 14th, 15th and 17th.
The 2021 winner was on target to equal his lowest ever round at Augusta National – set in round three on his way to victory – but dropped his only shot of the day on the last after failing to get up and down from a greenside bunker.
Matsuyama’s score, which saw him finish the tournament on two under par, nevertheless increased the chances of more players challenging Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau for the coveted green jacket.
McIlroy’s electrifying second successive 66 in the third round took him to 12 under par and gave him a two-shot lead over DeChambeau, the man who edged him to the US Open title in dramatic fashion last year.
Canada’s Corey Conners was four shots off the lead on eight under, with 2018 winner Patrick Reed and last year’s runner-up, Ludvig Aberg, another two strokes adrift.
The last player to come from four or more shots behind in the final round to win was South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel in 2011, a statistic of which McIlroy will have been painfully aware.
McIlroy held a four-shot lead after 54 holes on that occasion but collapsed to a closing round of 80, with Schwartzel taking advantage in style with birdies on the last four holes to finish two shots clear of Adam Scott and Jason Day.
