Again the chasee

 And now the latest renewal of that long-running Augusta National favorite, "How Will Rory Blow It This Time?", aka "Oh, Crap, I'm Leading Again", aka "I Bet I Could Hit One O' Them Cabins Over There If I Really Tried."

Which Rory McIlroy famously did once -- OK, so almost did -- during one of his several Sunday meltdowns at the Masters. And now he's the chasee again after 54 holes, leading Bryson DeChambeau by two nervous strokes. Cue the spooky Organ Music Of Foreboding.

If I were a betting man, I'd drop some coin on DeChambeau to don the green jacket. Guy birdied three of the last four holes yesterday to whittle McIlroy's lead from four strokes to two, and finished by dunking a 48-foot Rand McNally birdie on 18. He's not just breathing down Rory's neck, he's practically sharing McIlroy's shirt with him.

Now, it's true McIlroy put up an impeccable 66 to semi-separate himself, bagging a couple of eagles along the way. It's also true this will be his 11th crack at completing the career Grand Slam, something that's been done in the Masters era only by Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Your basic golf Hall of Fame, in other words.

McIlroy would fit in nicely with that group, seeing how's he's one of the pre-eminent golfers of his generation. So you can look at him finally breaking through today as merely history behaving itself.

And yet ...

And yet, it's the Masters. 

It's Sunday.

It's Augusta National, Amen Corner and all that mess.

Gruesome car crashes in the final 18 holes are kind of a thing here, in other words. People hitting golf balls into ponds and creeks and up against pines, or deep into the patrons lining the ropes. Snap hooks sailing off into parts unknown. Putts in swim trunks and carrying beach towels rolling fast across the diabolical greens into bodies of water.

I don't know any of that will happen to Rory today, once again. I don't know if he'll smite another cabin, or hit six balls into Rae's Creek, or triple-doink a snap hook off a stately pine, a port-a-potty and the dome of Merle the insurance salesman from Colorado Springs. 

I hope he doesn't.

I hope, for posterity's sake, he holds off DeChambeau, and doesn't get waylaid because one of his other pursuers -- a Corey Conners, say, or Patrick Reed or Ludvig Aberg -- lapses into unconsciousness and puts up some baroque number. The order of the golfing universe, or something, would be all out of round without Rory McIlroy finally donning a green jacket. 

I'm still picking DeChambeau, however. I'm just mean that way.