WORLD NUMBER ONE Rory McIlroy believes Jordan Spieth has the experience to hold onto his lead at the Masters.
Spieth increased his three-shot first-round advantage to five at the midway point at Augusta yesterday, as the 21-year-old chases a maiden major and green jacket.
McIlroy, yet to win the illustrious tournament, held a four-shot lead heading to the final round in 2011, but shot an 80 to finish well off the pace of eventual champion Charl Schwartzel.
Hunting his third straight major and a career sweep of the four big tournaments, McIlroy says Spieth will hold his composure — especially after finishing tied-for-second behind Bubba Watson in 2014. Last year, Spieth also blew a final-round lead.
“I know better than most people what can happen with the lead around here,” McIlroy said.
“But Jordan’s had the experience. He had the experience last year. He had a couple-shot lead and couldn’t quite hold on to it. But he’ll have learned from that, and he’ll definitely handle it better this time around.”
McIlroy took 40 shots to get through his front-nine, as he went to the turn at four over the card — and three-over for the tournament. But the Northern Irishman said battling back was always on his mind, as he momentarily flirted with being cut.
“I was just trying to get myself back to even par for the tournament. And then I did that pretty quickly on the back-nine,” he said, after a birdie on 10 and eagle on 13 brought him back to even par.
“So even though it was an up-and-down round, I finished on a high note and at least make myself feel a little bit better going into the weekend.”
On his own winning chances, McIlroy said that not only would Spieth not falter, but he would not be able to make up enough of the deficit himself.
“I would need to shoot a 14-under-par weekend, and Jordan would have to play a couple of average rounds, and neither of those two things look like they’re going to happen, so it’s going to be tough,” McIlroy said.
