Rory McIlroy Captures 2nd Players Championship

This week the eyes of the golf world were on TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for the 51st edition of The Players Championship.  Often referred to as golf’s “5th major”, The Players is the PGA Tour’s flagship event, and Rory McIlroy walked away today with his second Players Championship joining elite company.

Since 2019 when the event moved back to its traditional spot in mid-March, weather has seemed to play a much bigger factor than it did during its 12-year span being played in mid-May from 2007 to 2018. Days with colder than normal temperatures and higher winds have added even more unpredictability to this event, which has never been lacking on one of Pete Dye’s most diabolical course designs. Even the appearance of the course has looked radically different in March with lush green fairways and rough more closely resembling Augusta National than the dried out TPC Sawgrass we would see in May.

I may be in the minority on this, but I personally preferred the way the course looked and played in May, but that is a discussion for another day.

This year’s Players championship was no different, with several days being affected by high winds and a long weather delay on Sunday further softening the course and pushing the eventual playoff to be played on Monday morning.

Windy conditions wreaked havoc on Saturday which saw the two 36 hole leaders, Min Woo Lee and Akshay Bhatia, shoot rounds of 78 and 75 respectively effectively ending both their chances of walking away with the trophy. Relatively unknown JJ Spaun, the 57th ranked player in the world, entered Sunday with the lead sitting at -12. Despite not being a well known name among fans Spaun has gone on an impressive run this year with two (now three) top 3 finishes, in addition to his one PGA Tour victory at the 2022 Valero Texas Open. His caddie, Mark Carens, also had good experience at this tournament having been on the bag for Si Woo Kim’s victory in 2017.

Rory made his presence known early on Sunday with an impressive birdie-eagle start, then another birdie on the long par 3 8^th hole. Spaun looked shaky at times but made the turn with a 37 (+1) and was only one shot back of McIlroy after the horn blew for inclement weather.

When play restarted at 5:15 after a several hour weather delay, Rory started off quickly with a birdie on the short Par 4 12th to grab a commanding 3 shot lead with only 6 holes to play. For a few minutes it looked like this could be another runaway victory for McIlroy but a bogey on 14 and missed birdie opportunities on 15,16, and 17 left the door open for Spaun.

JJ would go on to birdie 14 and 16 and leave his potential tournament clinching putt agonizingly short on the 18^th hole. This meant the tournament would be heading to a Monday morning three-hole aggregate playoff of holes 16, 17, and 18, the first playoff in 10 years.

From the first tee shots Monday morning, it felt like Rory’s championship to lose. He went driver-wedge-two putt birdie on the Par 5 16^th, while Spaun scrambled for par from the front greenside bunker. But the true decisive moment would come on the second hole of the playoff, the famed and feared island 17^th hole claiming one more victim Monday morning. With only a 1 shot wind and a 20+ mph wind, Rory faced the most nerve-wracking tee shot in professional golf. His flighted 9 iron was a work of art finding the center of the island green. Moments later Spaun flew his tee shot into the water culminating in essentially a tournament ending triple bogey. It was gut wrenching to watch Spaun’s shot find the water after making such a great swing, almost hitting it too pure which penetrated through the strong headwind. Even in his post round press conference he seemed genuinely shocked he went long when watching the replay of it the for the first time. But those are the breaks of championship golf. Rory hit the shots he needed when he needed it. That is special stuff, especially on that golf course in those conditions. And Rory certainly further cemented himself into a special category with this win. With his 28th PGA tour victory, he also became only the 8th multiple time winner of The Players, and joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Scottie Scheffler as the only players to win multiple majors and multiple Players championships. Not bad company to be in.

For JJ Spaun even though the week ended in heartbreaking fashion, I think he must look at this as a huge positive. One thing about The Players championships is that the cream always seems to rise to the top, and he was right there with a chance to win. Given his form this year, I would not at all be surprised to see him continue to contend in big events and maybe breakthrough for a second win.

Rory’s most powerful weapon, his driver, had a very uncharacteristic week hitting less than 50% of fairways. In almost Tiger-like fashion, he found ways to manufacture golf shots when he got out of position – shots that only a handful of players in the world can execute under tournament pressure. It’s hard enough to win on Tour with your A game, let alone finding ways to win when you don’t have your best stuff that week. That is one thing I feel like we haven’t always seen from McIlroy as much as we would have expected. Again, we may be spoiled from watching Tiger win tournaments with his A-game to his D-game and every grade in between. But it was almost refreshing to see him struggle a little this week and still find a way to win.

Per his talk with the Golf Channel Live From crew following his playoff victory it sounds like his next tour stop will be the Houston Open in two weeks. But undoubtedly this victory shifts all eyes to Rory going into the season’s first major, The Masters, in just 3 weeks in search of the final leg of the elusive career Grand Slam. This will be his 11th year going into Augusta with the opportunity to complete the career slam, and while his results have been solid it still feels disappointing for a player of his caliber. Since 2015 he has 6 Top 10s including a runner up finish in 2022, 2 Top 25s, and 2 missed cuts. Will this be the year Rory finally gets over the hump at Augusta and avenges his recent Sunday heartbreaks in majors? We will find out soon – but for today no one can question that Rory is the face of the game.

Being the first big name star to really emerge in the post-Tiger era, the pressure on him the last ten plus years has been immense, and probably even crushing at times. He has been a lightning rod for criticism in recent years with his very vocal takes on LIV and the current state of professional golf. Putting aside my personal opinions on many of his detractors, especially the internet armchair analysts, its clear golf needs a dominant and even somewhat controversial figure to be the face of the sport. No, he’s not Tiger Woods. There’s probably nobody who will ever be able to play up to the standard that Tiger set at the peak of his career. Those medium to short range knee knocker putts will probably always have us holding our breath in ways we never did watching Tiger. But it’s time to just let Rory McIlroy be Rory McIlroy. Appreciate greatness wherever we can watch it, and for however long we have it.