Portugal Colonial - DeChambeau surges late to line up Masters showdown with McIlroy

"On 15, 16, 17 18, those last few holes, I just kept thinking to myself 'Just get in the final pairing. Just execute those shots the best you possibly can and give yourself a chance.'"

The 31-year-old LIV Golf star was five shots adrift after McIlroy eagled the par-five 15th, but birdies at 15 and 16 and a scintillating 48-foot birdie putt from the fringe at 18 saw him vault past Canadian Corey Conners into second place.

"I made a beautiful putt to finish it off," DeChambeau said, calling the moment "euphoric."

But he said an array of up-and-downs was the real key to his round, and greens hit in regulation is "where I have to focus up."

Some of that could be down to the idiosyncracies of Augusta National, DeChambeau said.

"What's funny is on 14, I hit a great pitching wedge from like 169 yards. And I have no idea why it ended up 20 yards short of where my landing spot was," he said. "I think it was just a little bit of the mowing into the grain, it may have been sitting down a little bit and came out spinny, and there you go.

"That's part of what happens out here," DeChambeau added. "It's going to be fun over the course of my career to figure more of that stuff out.

"Because it certainly doesn't happen very often elsewhere, but it does happen a lot here. It will be a fun thing to figure out over the course of time."

He'll be hoping to have enough of a handle on he iconic Georgia course to challenge McIlroy, who can become just the sixth man to complete the career Grand Slam if he can claim a long-coveted green jacket on Sunday.

"We both want to win really, really badly," said DeChambeau, who out-dueled McIlroy at Pinehurst last year to win a second US Open title, McIlroy missing two makeable putts in the final three holes before DeChambeau pitched out of a bunker and made par at the final hole to win.

But DeChambeau said it would be a mistake to think of Sunday as a duel with McIlroy.

"There's a lot of great players behind us, too," he said. "Got to be mindful of that.

"It's about who can control themselves and who can execute the golf shots the best."

X.Brito--PC