April 12 (Reuters) - Scottie Scheffler praised Rory McIlroy for being able to come through a tough stretch and close out the Masters on Sunday after the world number one finished one shot behind the back-to-back champion.
Scheffler, a two-time champion at Augusta National, looked well out of contention after the opening two rounds but went bogey-free through the weekend to finish the tournament at 11-under par.
"I've competed against him for a long time, and you don't win the amount of tournaments that he's won out here without being pretty resilient," Scheffler said of McIlroy.
"I knew going into today I was going to have to do something special if I wanted to catch him."
McIlroy saw the six-shot lead he built up through the first two rounds evaporate in the Georgia heat on Saturday andtrailed by two shots on Sunday before rallying to victory.
"Having a six-shot lead at Augusta is never easy, and losing that is obviously something difficult," said Scheffler.
"But at the end of the day when you tee it up here on Sunday, you know, he's tied for the lead to start the day and had a solid round and did what he needed to do in order to get it done."
Scheffler said a 74 on Friday did the most damage to his title hopes after difficult conditions on Thursday gave way to softer greens the next day.
There were also a few moments on Sunday that could have gone differently, he added, pointing to a putt on 17 and his approach at the last.
"The putt I hit on 17 I really thought I made," he said.
"The shot into 18 I hit it exactly how I wanted to. I think we just lost it in the wind, and it got right up to the edge and came all the way back down."
But he said he would not dwell on those closing holes.
"Overall I'm not going to hold too many regrets, but definitely a bit disappointed now," he said.
"I started the weekend 12 shots back and ended up only one shot back. If I am going to blame anything, I should probably blame the first two rounds before I start looking at stuff from the last couple."
(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
