Cameron Young, who was eight back of McIlroy to start the day, overtook the Grand Slam winner late in the day. McIlroy briefly reclaimed a one-shot lead but gave that back with a bogey on 17, bending over in exasperation when he left a par putt just short.
Cameron Young fist bumps his caddie, Kyle Sterbinsky, on the 18th green during the third round of the Masters on Saturday in Augusta, Ga.
(Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
Young, whose first PGA Tour victory came last August, heads into the final round tied atop the leaderboard with McIlroy at 11 under par.
The 28-year-old from Westchester County, N.Y., is going to take a business-as-usual approach to the biggest day of his career. He plans to start the day with Mass at a nearby church — before taking on Amen Corner.
“It might be difficult to go undetected, but it’s not going to stop us,” said Young, who has three children younger than 5. “We’ll find somewhere and take the kids. We’ll be out in full force just like usual.”
Saturday was a remarkable turnaround for Young, who was all but cooked on Thursday, playing the first seven holes in four over par. He bounced back strong with a 67 on Friday, and a 65 on Saturday, collecting a combined 14 birdies over those rounds.
Rory McIlroy reacts in frustration on the 18th green during the third round of the Masters on Sunday in Augusta, Ga.
(Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
“I don’t get the sense I’ll be the fan favorite,” Young said. “Rory’s kind of a world favorite in the golf world. A year ago if I’d been in the same situation, there would have been very little [fan support], and now there’s probably a little more. So I’ll take what I can get.”
A host of other competitors moved within striking distance of their first green jacket — Sam Burns, Nick Lowry, Jason Day and Justin Rose.
Lowry had a hole-in-one on No. 6, a decade after acing the 16th. He became the first player in Masters history to record multiple holes-in-one.
Scottie Sheffler, ranked No. 1 in the world, started the day at even par but shot 65 to climb into the mix at four shots back, saying, “I don’t feel like I’m out of the tournament.”
For Day, the key to his 68 was staying patient. He three-putted the opening hole for bogey but kept his cool.
“Statistically I average around four to five birdies a round, so I just knew they were going to come,” he said. “I just didn’t know when they were going to come.”
He got hot from the 12th through 15th holes, stringing together four birdies in a row.
Day has been in contention at the Masters several times, finishing second in 2015.
“I feel like the guys that are leading right now have all the pressure,” he said. “I’m just kind of the chaser. Usually the chasers don’t really have a lot of the pressure.”
That Collin Morikawa is even relevant at this point is stunning, considering the physical battle he’s enduring. The two-time major winner shot 68 on Saturday despite issues with an injury — possibly his back — affecting his legs. He said he’s swinging at roughly half-speed.
“My legs aren’t moving the way they used to,” he said. “So then I’m throwing my arms, and I’m having to time up my arms. So, like, every swing I’m putting at, I am essentially just throwing my arms at the ball hoping that it squares everything up.”
Morikawa was six shots back along with former UCLA standout Jake Knapp and one behind another former Bruin, Patrick Cantlay (five back).
Reaction to Tiger Woods’ car crash and driving under the influence arrest last month ranged from sadness to dismay to exasperation. Few observers, however, expressed surprise.
Although widely recognized as perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, Woods, 50, has been in a downward spiral personally and professionally for years.
His struggles with prescription drugs became public in 2017 when police found him asleep at the wheel of his car with the engine running near his Jupiter, Fla., home. Multiple painkillers, sleep aids and THC were detected in his system. Woods checked into rehab shortly after that incident, saying his efforts to manage insomnia and pain from his staggering number of surgeries on his own was a mistake.
Now, though, he’s again in rehab, likely in Switzerland after his private jet landed in Zurich on Friday, according to reports. The latest crash is the fourth major incident involving Woods behind the wheel since 2009.
“I feel bad for Tiger,” fellow golf great Jack Nicklaus told the Palm Beach Post. “He’s been taking painkillers for a long time and I don’t know how much pain he’s in. But I don’t think he’d be taking them if he didn’t need them.”
Woods’ current pivot to recovery follows a barrage of headlines about his rollover crash and unfocused, hiccups-laden aftermath captured on police officers’ body cameras that included a phone call to President Trump, failed field sobriety tests, handcuffs and a drive to jail in the back seat of a squad car.
A vehicle rests on its side after a rollover accident involving golfer Tiger Woods along a road in Rancho Palos Verdes on Feb. 23, 2021. Woods suffered leg injuries that required surgery.
(Ringo H.W. Chiu / Associated Press)
The episode also provides an opportunity to reflect on Woods’ meteoric rise, sustained excellence and precipitous decline on the golf course, his scandal-plagued personal life and what the future might hold.
What does this latest episode say about Tiger Woods and where does he goes from here?
Prodigy to supremacy
Born Eldrick Tont Woods on Dec. 30, 1975, Tiger was given his nickname by his father, Earl, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Green Beret who served in Vietnam. Earl’s combat partner was nicknamed Tiger and it was passed along.
Earl was deployed in the 1960s to the same base in Thailand where Kultida Punsawad worked as a secretary. They married and settled in the Orange County town of Cypress after the war. Tiger was their only child.
“When Tiger was 10 months old, I unstrapped him out of his high chair and he walked over and hit the ball,” Earl recalled on an HBO documentary about his son. “I said, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got something special.’ ”
Amateur Tiger Woods, right, talks with his father, Earl Woods, after practice for the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in the 1990s.
(Amy Sancetta / Associated Press)
That soon became apparent to everyone. At age 5, Woods showed his golfing prowess on the television show “That’s Incredible.” At 6, he played a televised two-hole exhibition at Calabasas Country Club with legendary golfer Sam Snead, whose record of 82 PGA Tour victories would be equaled by Woods nearly 40 years later.
Life wasn’t all manicured greens. The only black child in his kindergarten class, he was tied to a tree by sixth graders, The Times’ Bill Plaschke reported. Woods played in his first national junior tournament at 13 in Texarkana, Ark., and a local reporter accused him of participating only because he wanted to integrate the local country club.
His excellence eventually stifled racism and quieted critics. As a high school sophomore in 1992, Woods became the youngest golfer to play in a PGA Tour event, shooting a one-over-par 72 at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.
He first hurt his back during that historic round, pulling a muscle while hitting out of deep rough. Afterward he remained on site for treatment, foreshadowing what would be a career-threatening battle with back injuries that includes seven surgeries since 2014 — several microdiscectomies, a 2017 lumbar fusion and most recently a lumbar disc replacement performed in October 2025.
“Tiger Woods’ experience with spinal disease highlights a real and under-recognized issue among modern-era golfers,” said Dr. Corey Walker of the Barrow Neurological Institute. “Tiger’s use of the mechanics of the modern-day swing places a tremendous strain on the back.”
The high-torque swing emphasizes maximum rotation of Woods’ shoulders relative to his hips. It’s tough on his spine but also results in long drives and low scores.
Bothersome backs are common among golfers. Scotland-based osteopath Gavin Routledge, who has teamed with renowned golf coach Gary Nicol in developing a treatment program for spinal injuries, views Woods’ medical history as particularly telling.
“I honestly can’t see a way out for him,” Routledge told Golfweek. “We have known for decades that once you have one disc surgery, the chances of having another are substantially higher, especially if you use the fusion technique like Tiger. It’s a domino effect.”
Woods had no such worries in the mid-1990s. Amid winning three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles, he attended Stanford but left in 1996 after two years and turned pro at 20, smiling and saying “Hello, world” at his introductory news conference.
By 2000, he became the youngest golfer to complete the career Grand Slam of winning the Tour’s four majors and only the fifth ever to do so, following Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player, and Nicklaus.
His dominance accelerated quickly, and nearly every year from 1997 to 2013 he won at least four and as many as nine tournament championships. He had his first back surgery in 2014 and the victories ceased until he shocked the sports world in 2019 by winning the Masters — the tournament considered the pinnacle of golf — for the fifth time, but the first in 14 years.
Tiger Woods and caddie Steve Williams watch Woods’ chip shot teeter at the edge of the cup before dropping in the 16th hole during the final round of the 2005 Masters tournament.
(Al Tielemans / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
“It’s overwhelming, just because of what has transpired,” Woods said. “It’s unreal to experience this.”
A few months later he won the inaugural PGA Tour event in Japan to tie Snead’s record of 82 career titles, hoisting the trophy 23 years to the day of his first Tour title at the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational. It was his last victory.
Comeback attempts have been infrequent and unsuccessful, measured against the standards he set for decades. All the while, his injuries mounted and personal life deteriorated.
Losing his grip
Even with his career at its pinnacle and before his back became chronically balky, Woods found his way onto tabloid headlines. It all started with his first public car accident.
Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant outside his home in Isleworth, Fla., at 2:30 a.m. Nov. 27, 2009. He was treated at a hospital with minor injuries and the incident turned out to be the culmination of a whirlwind of missteps that revealed Woods having affairs with several women outside of his marriage to Swedish model Elin Nordegren, the mother of his two children.
Additional reporting identified Woods as a regular at the Mansion, a club for high rollers at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, where he had a $1 million betting limit and played blackjack at $25,000 a hand with NBA superstars Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.
Woods admitted in 2010 that he had a sex addiction and spent 45 days at an inpatient program in Hattiesburg, Miss. He and Nordegren divorced.
The turmoil took a toll on Woods’ golf game for two years, but he rebounded, winning three tournaments in 2012 and five in 2013. It wasn’t until his first back surgery in 2014 that his career plummeted for good.
Research indicates that retirees who define themselves primarily through their careers are vulnerable to prolonged distress. Few have had a professional life so clearly defined and wildly successful as Woods.
Tiger Woods hits from the fairway at the Riviera Country Club during the second round of the Genesis Invitational on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024 in Pacific Palisades.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
While not officially retired — he planned to play in this week’s Masters until his rollover crash and arrest — his last PGA Tour event was the Open Championship in Scotland in July 2024.
His most formidable obstacles to another comeback might be physical. Woods walks with a limp after suffering extensive damage to his right leg and ankle from a near-fatal single-car crash in Rancho Palos Verdes in 2021. And his most serious back surgery took place only six months ago.
Woods’ more immediate concern seems to be kicking his use of addictive opioid painkillers. A judge in Martin County, Fla., granted his request to seek treatment outside the U.S. He also turned down the role of United States Ryder Cup captain in 2027.
“I know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find myself in today,” Woods said in a statement. “I am stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health. This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery.
“I’m committed to taking the time needed to return to a healthier, stronger, and more focused place, both personally and professionally. I appreciate your understanding and support, and ask for privacy for my family, loved ones and myself at this time.”
What now?
Woods will continue to make a sizable impact on golf even if he never sets another ball on a tee.
He serves as Founder and CEO of TGR, a multibrand enterprise that includes a charitable foundation, a golf course design company, an events production company and an upscale restaurant, among other holdings.
His immense popularity lined the pockets of nearly everyone associated with the PGA Tour. TV ratings skyrocketed, tournament purses spiked and he single-handedly expanded golf’s demographic appeal.
The Masters is taking place this week in Augusta, Ga. Woods, who has donned the famed green jacket given the champion five times, is on the minds of many of the golfers.
Tiger Woods celebrates after sinking his putt on the 18th green to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on April 14, 2019.
(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
“He was my hero growing up,” said Jason Day, a veteran pro golfer and close friend of Woods. “It must be hard to be who he is and have everyone kind of down on him.”
Later, Day added this: “The only thing I don’t understand is that it’s a bit selfish of him to drive and put other people in harm’s way as well. But when you’re the player he was and how strong-willed he is — he thinks he can do almost anything — and that’s probably why he’s driving and a little bit under the influence.”
Woods has also been on the mind of Nicklaus, at 86 the only living golfer who enjoyed anything close to the success of Woods.
“Sometimes you get too far down the line and just need somebody to help you,” he said. “I think Tiger probably needs some help. We all want to help him. We are all on his side.”
OKLAHOMA CITY — The score wasn’t the only thing that made this the Lakers’ worst loss of the season.
Even more concerning than the Lakers’ 139-96 blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday was superstar guard Luka Doncic’s health after the 27-year-old hobbled off the court with a left hamstring injury in the third quarter.
Doncic attempted to drive into the lane at the 7:39 mark of the third quarter but pulled up suddenly in the midrange. He stopped as the ball bounced out of bounds. He grabbed at the back of his left leg and hobbled to the baseline, where he lowered himself to the court, rolled over to his back and covered his face. Concerned teammates surrounded him. Coach JJ Redick offered a hand to pull him off the court.
Doncic, who was just named Western Conference player of the month after scoring 600 points in March, was limited to 12 points, seven assists and six turnovers before the injury. It was the second Lakers injury scare in a game that was supposed to be a marquee matchup between the hottest teams in the league.
Austin Reaves was hobbling through the first quarter, grabbing at his left lower back at nearly every sudden movement. He appeared to get hurt while chasing down a loose ball with 6:23 remaining.
The Lakers had eight turnovers in the first quarter. Lu Dort had two steals and hit all four of his three-pointers as the Thunder were seven for 11 from three-point range. Reaves, who returned from the locker room with 9:40 left in the second quarter, was the only Laker player with multiple made field goals in the first quarter.
