McIlroy loses the heavyweight battle at the Masters

Here were the winners of half of the past eight majors. Here were the world’s No. 2- and No. 3-ranked players. Here was the Masters defender vs. the player who needed only a Masters title to complete his set of grand-slam titles.

But then the anticipation stopped and the actual exchange of shots began, and this one turned ugly.

“I love playing with Rory,” Spieth said. “He just couldn’t get anything going today, couldn’t get any putts to go. So, it was kind of just a blah round at that.”

Blah is not what we came to see Saturday.

Down goes McIlroy! Down goes McIlroy!

And then, didn’t Spieth come down with a case of the wobbles, too?

The larger question of who is going to win the 2016 Masters remains unsettled, even as Spieth managed to retain his lock on the lead. But in the matter of Spieth v. McIlroy — Saturday’s great subplot — there was at least a clear victor.

Beginning the day one stroke behind Spieth’s lead, McIlroy was five back at day’s end after his third-round 77.

Were this really a fight, someone would have stepped in and stopped it when McIlroy tried to reprise his infamous off-the-cabin shot that defined his Masters loss in 2011. Again he sailed wild left off the 10th tee, and again his hopes got turned around in the loblolly pines. But still they kept playing.

Next, McIlroy went from the pine straw to the pond guarding the 11th green to pile a double bogey upon the previous grievous bogey. With that, he appeared done. No career grand slam this year — only 27 more holes to play out until he can get out of Georgia again feeling slightly incomplete.

Then Spieth did something unaccountable. He let up. With a bogey-double bogey finish he gave aid and comfort to many in this field, even the battered McIlroy.

“To be honest with you, I would be feeling a lot worse about myself if I hadn’t have just seen what Jordan did the last two holes,” McIlroy said afterward. “I sort of take a bit of heart from that, that I’m still in this golf tournament.

“Standing on 17 tee I didn’t feel I was.” By parring out the final seven holes, McIlroy at least was able to talk himself up from position of tomato can to contender when he tees off Sunday.

Entering Saturday, McIlroy held a 6-4-2 advantage over Spieth the dozen times they had played together on the PGA Tour (8-4-2 when factoring in European Tour events). He just doesn’t match up well on these grounds.

But this is Augusta National, a place that badly needs to build another bridge over Rae’s Creek just so it can name it after Spieth. Having led now for his past seven rounds at the Masters, Spieth is in position to absolutely claim ownership of this place. All those rich guys and three women — in their official membership wear — are but tenants until Spieth proves he isn’t going to win every blessed one of these tournaments until he gets his first crow’s foot.

Maybe McIlroy, who is in a hurry to complete his grand-slam resume, will find comfort in the fact that there will not be a head-to-head rematch in Sunday’s fourth round.

Perhaps that will simplify his strategic imperative.

“I just need to go out there tomorrow and be aggressive,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to lose. Today was my bad day, and hopefully I can go out there and make up for the lack of birdies and make double the amount tomorrow.” (There is a mathematical problem here — Spieth made zero birdies Saturday, and twice that many doesn’t really help his cause).

In the meantime, Spieth will be paired Sunday with a relative unknown, one Smylie Kaufman. And he brought a large group of players back into the picture with his stumbling finish, from the 58-year-old Bernhard Langer to world’s No. 1 Jason Day to a host of others.

No comfortable cushion, like a year ago when he went to Sunday with a four-shot lead. They are lining up to challenge him.

But Spieth remains the undisputed, undefeated Masters champion until someone knocks the title from his grasp.