Rory McIlroy ready for Masters moment

Rory McIlroy has been waiting quite some time for this moment.

And this time, the 28-year-old four-time major champion is ready.

McIlroy has been here before, in Sunday's final pairing at the Masters Tournament. Who can forget his monumental collapse in 2011 when his wire-to-wire victory blew up on Augusta National's second nine?

At the time, it seemingly had the makings of potentially being a career killer. Instead, McIlroy said, it was a career builder.

"I've always said that 2011 was a huge turning point in my career," he said. "It was a day I realized I wasn't ready to win major championships. I needed to reflect on that and realize what I needed to do differently.

"Now I am ready and I learned a lot from it."

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McIlroy will get a chance to apply that knowledge Sunday when he joins third-round leader Patrick Reed in the 2:40 p.m. final pairing. McIlroy posted a bogey-free 7-under 65 in Saturday's third round, shooting up the leaderboard to finish 11-under and trail Reed by three shots heading into the final round.

It's a margin McIlroy feels comfortable trying to make up. More importantly, he's even more comfortable with his position in general.

"I'm not in the lead like I was in 2011, so I won't have as much pressure," McIlroy said. "I don't have to protect anything. I can go out and sort of free-wheel like I did today, which is a great position to be in."

Getting into that position, McIlroy admitted, required a little bit of luck. Misfortune has bitten McIlroy plenty at Augusta National, but on Saturday, Lady Luck was smiling down.

It started on No. 5, when McIlroy hit into the cavernous fairway bunker. His shot out skipped off the top edge of the bunker but somehow maintained enough steam to  roll onto the green and settle 12 feet from the cup.

He only made par, but the save, coming on the heels of birdies at Nos. 3 and 4, kept him rolling.

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"It gives you a huge boost of momentum," McIlroy said. "Considering what happened on 5, I felt like I could have stepped up and hit that putt left-handed and it would have went in, from the look I got from the second shot."

Three holes later, McIlroy banged home a chip off the flagstick and into the hole on No. 8 for an unexpected eagle, keying a front-nine 31.

Staying there required more good fortune. In 2011, McIlroy's flickering hopes were extinguished when he found the creek on No. 13 with his drive. On Saturday, his second shot found the azaleas above the green on the same hole.

McIlroy was able to not only find his ball, but also get a swing on it. Punching just short of the green, he was able to get up and down for par.

"It was a sea of pink," McIlroy said. "I was lucky just to see the ball and I had a stance. You know, it's actually, the azaleas are pretty thin down below. They look pretty thick on top, but down below they are actually not too bad."

McIlroy got up and down for birdie on No. 15 and then for pars on Nos. 16 and 17 before one last bit of luck came his way. His drive on No. 18 was headed into the pines right, but hit one and kicked back out to the fairway.

He put his approach to 17 feet and rammed home the birdie putt, punctuating the finish with a mighty fist pump.

"I rode my luck a little bit out there today," McIlroy said. "Some days it's with you and some days it's against you, and today it was with me and I took advantage of it. Hopefully I don't need to rely too much on luck tomorrow and I can go out there and play a good round of golf."