Schwartzel shot a simply brilliant 66 at Augusta National yesterday, a dramatic start and then four closing birdies giving the 26-year-old South African his first major title by two from Australians Adam Scott and Jason Day after it looked for a while as though Tiger Woods was going to triumph from seven back.

McIlroy’s wait for a green jacket goes on after he crashed from four in front overnight to 10 shots behind and joint 15th place with a nightmare 80.

“I was still one shot ahead going into the 10th and then things went all pear-shaped after that,” said the 21-year-old Co Down man, who had hoped to become the second youngest winner in Masters history.

Pear-shaped is putting it mildly.

He triple-bogeyed the 10th, three-putted the 11th, four-putted the 12th and bogeyed the long 15th to become the third 54-hole leader in the last four majors - Dustin Johnson and Nick Watney were the others – to fail to break 80.

But while Johnson and Watney actually scored worse McIlroy’s advantage when he teed off was the biggest and the last time anyone lost a bigger last day lead in a major was Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie in 1999.

And by suffering such a reversal in fortunes the world number nine had even done worse than Greg Norman at Augusta in 1996. With a 78 Norman went from six clear to five behind Nick Faldo.

The Great White Shark never did win another major – thankfully he had two Opens to his name by then – but McIlroy does at least have time on his side.

“It was a very disappointing day obviously.” he said, “But hopefully I’ll learn from it and come back a little stronger.

“I don’t think I can put it down to anything else than part of the learning curve.

“Hopefully if I can get myself back into this position pretty soon I will handle it a little bit better.

“It will be pretty tough for me for the next few days, but I will get over it - I will be fine.

“There are a lot worse things that can happen in your life. Shooting a bad score in the last round of a golf tournament is nothing in comparison to what other people go through.

“Getting applauded up onto the greens, I was almost a little embarrassed at some points. But the support I had here was fantastic and I really appreciate it.

“I can’t really put my finger on what went wrong. I lost a lot of confidence with my putting, but I just hit a poor tee shot on 10 and sort of unravelled from there.

“I’ll have plenty more chances I know and hopefully it will build a bit of character in me as well.”

Schwartzel was playing only his second Masters and had never finished in the top 10 of any major before, but he said he took inspiration from the Open success of close friend and compatriot Louis Oosthuizen last summer.

Playing in the group ahead of McIlroy, he chipped in at the first and holed a pitch shot for eagle at the third to grab a share of the lead.

But Schwartzel was behind again until he came storming through with putts of eight, 15, 12 and 18 feet for a dream final burst.

“I felt surprisingly very calm before teeing off and I think Rory must have had lots of pressure on him to be leading by that far,” he said.

Asked what he could say by way of comfort as they set off for Asia the new world number 11 stated: “It’s difficult. – what do you say?

“He’s such a good player. He’s going to win a major some time.

“Obviously things didn’t go his way, but he way he played the first three rounds you have to think that a win is not that far away.

“Golf is a really funny game. One moment you’re on top of it and the next it bites you.

“He’s such a phenomenal player. He’ll win one. He’s going to be disappointed and he’s going to feel hurt, but he’s a good enough player to come back out and win.”