The lesson Sheffield United can learn from Rory McIlroy as Chris Wilder makes promotion vow

As a keen lover of golf, he will have no doubt been glued to his screen as Rory McIlroy completed a remarkable turnaround to claim a long-awaited Masters title. But thousands of miles away from the perfectly manicured greens at Augusta, there may have been a little lesson in there for his Sheffield United side as well.

The Northern Irishman started the tournament slowly, recovered to establish the lead and then almost threw it away twice, showing heaps of resilience and character to see off the challenge of nearest Bryson DeChambeau and secure a Grand Slam that had long eluded him. In many ways it was the perfect encapsulation of why we love sport, a reminder that all hope is not always lost, no matter the odds.

United are facing a pretty similar situation to McIlroy, having suffered a huge swing and seen a prize that looked in their grasp slip further and further away. A week that began with them two points clear at the top ended with them five points adrift and down to third, with the first of four remaining games tomorrow against Cardiff City at Bramall Lane.

"It's sport,” said Wilder when asked about the dramatic events in Georgia and what United can take from them. “It was won and it was lost, and it was won and it was lost, and it was won again, then it was lost again and it was won.

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"Nobody would have thought going down the 18th in regular time he would put it in the bunker. If he had 1,000 shots, 1,000 times he would put it in the middle of the green. That's just how it is. These things happen, but that's no excuse. Possibly he'd be saying the same if he'd lost it.

"It's up to us to deal with situations, up to us to deal with different parts of the season, different challenges. In the recent past we haven't been good enough to deal with the challenges. In the next weeks we have to be good enough to deal with the challenges.

Sheffield United not giving up in automatic promotion pursuit as Chris Wilder sends vow

"When the regular season finishes we will reflect and look back and if this is a week that 's hurt us, it's hurt us and we've got to own that. Then we reset and go again because there are still games after that. But that isn't the focus.

“We still can believe we can win four games of football but the biggest one is now we need to win one because losing three games on the spin at the top end of the Championship is not good enough for me and it's not good enough for the football club. We accept that and own that.”

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United are not yet mathematically out of the automatic promotion race but realistically need to win all of their final regular-season games, such is the form of Leeds and Burnley, and hope that one of their rivals slip up elsewhere.

For now, Wilder is just looking at Friday’s clash with Cardiff as he targets a victory that may just settle the mood a little around Bramall Lane after a disastrous week that few, in reality, would have seen coming.