(Photo credit: Mike Frey-Imagn Images)

Golfers are sometimes described as magicians, but Rory McIlroy even surprised himself when he appeared to turn one golf ball into two during the third round of the Open Championship on Saturday.

The highlight of McIlroy's 5-under-par 66 was a 56-foot eagle that electrified the crowd at Royal Portrush in his native Northern Ireland. It helped him climb to 8 under par, still six strokes off Scottie Scheffler's lead entering the final round.

But the most extraordinary sequence was his second shot at the par-4 11th hole, which somehow unearthed a lost golf ball buried beneath his own.

McIlroy worked his way into contention by making three birdies over his first four holes. However, he settled for all pars until he got to No. 11 and missed the fairway to the right.

After an extensive time studying his shot from the trampled-down rough and changing his choice of club, McIlroy took his swing and a second golf ball popped up from out of view.

While McIlroy's own ball came up short of the green and settled in the fairway, the new ball dropped in between his feet and caught him -- and the broadcasters -- by surprise.McIlroy laughed it off and tossed the mystery ball into a nearby bush. NBC Sports commentator and former caddie John Wood later said that a stunned McIlroy asked him if he'd ever seen anything like it.

The Grand Slam winner went on to hit a poor third shot onto the green and two-putted for the only bogey of his round.

'I honestly don't know. That is the most weird, ridiculous thing I've ever seen,' McIlroy said during his interview on NBC Sports. 'Then my ball came out really weird and spinny. Yeah, just so strange.'

McIlroy later added in remarks to the media that he had no inkling another ball might be anywhere near his own.

'Yeah, it's never happened to me before. It could never happen on any other course but a links course as well,' he said. 'When the rough is all matted down and the balls get -- it was very strange.'

The bogey quickly left McIlroy's mind once he reached the green in two at the par-5 12th. With a massive gallery looking on, his ball traveled up and over a ridge, broke to the left and dropped for eagle.

'It's one of the largest roars I've ever heard on a golf course,' McIlroy said. 'So that was a really cool moment. To get those shots back straight away was nice, and I felt like I played the last few holes really solid and picked one up coming in, which was good.'

The one more he picked up came at No. 15, where his approach shot bounced high off the flagstick and settled about 4 feet away for an easy birdie.

Although a major victory in his home country is officially a longshot after Scheffler moved out to 14 under par, McIlroy is having a far better time at Royal Portrush this week than he did at the 2019 Open. He made a quadruple bogey on his first hole of the tournament, shot a 79 and could not rally to make the cut the next day.

Now 36, McIlroy has the Masters monkey off his back and does not appear to be bagged down by any internal or external pressure to perform for his compatriots.

'I'll try to find something to watch,' McIlroy said of his plan for between rounds. 'I started 'Oppenheimer' last night. Try to get through another hour of it tonight and maybe finish it tomorrow morning. Apart from that, just keep my mind off of things. I always do better with distraction.'

He called Scheffler 'inevitable' during his NBC interview -- though not necessarily that another Scheffler victory was inevitable.

'Yeah, it's going to be tough to catch him tomorrow if he keeps playing the way he does,' McIlroy said. 'But if I can get out tomorrow and get off to a similar start to what I did today, get the crowd going, hopefully he tails out a couple groups behind me, and you never know.

'But I just need to go out and play another really good round of golf tomorrow and see what happens.'

--Field Level Media