Rory McIlroy had every reason to think he would be leaving The Players Championship with the gold trophy and a big payoff Sunday. He was three shots ahead of J.J. Spaun after a four-hour rain delay and had a rain-softened course ahead of him.
Spaun refused to give in easily.
He caught McIlroy with two great shots, held his nerve down one of the most daunting closing stretches and it ended in a draw when it was too dark for a three-hole aggregate playoff.
This David-and-Goliath battle won’t be decided until Monday morning at the TPC Sawgrass.
McIlroy, keeping an eye on Spaun while playing in the group ahead of him, needed two putts from 75 feet on the par-4 18th for a 4-under 68. Then he had to wait until Spaun (72) came within inches of making a 30-foot birdie putt for the win.
“Everyone expects him to win,” said Spaun, who has one PGA Tour title and has never reached the Tour Championship. “I don’t think a lot of people expect me to win. I expect myself to win. That’s all I care about.”
McIlroy made birdie before and after the delay to build his lead to three shots. He played the final six holes in 1 over, and his 4-foot par putt on the 18th nearly slid out of hole.
“I’m standing here feeling like I should be going home with the trophy today,” McIlroy said. “But it’s all right. I’ll reset and try to go home with the trophy tomorrow.”
They finished at 12-under 276.
They did well to finish in regulation before sunset. The Players has a three-hole aggregate playoff on the most memorable holes on the TPC Sawgrass — the par-5 16th, the island green on the par-3 17th and the 18th hole that requires the boldest of tee shots with water all the way down the right and trees to the right.
It will be the first Monday finish at The Players Championship since Cameron Smith won in 2022, and the first playoff since Rickie Fowler won 10 years ago.
“You’ve got to make five good swings. That’s all it is,” said McIlroy, a four-time major champion with 38 titles worldwide. “So try to get up there, make five good swings tomorrow morning and get this thing done.”
Tom Hoge had to wait out the four-hole delay before facing a 15-foot birdie putt on the 18th. He missed, posting a 66 and wound up two shots behind. Lucas Glover rallied from a rough front nine for a 71 and joined Hoge and Akshay Bhatia (70). They each earned $1,325,000 for the tie for third from the $25 million purse, the richest in golf.
Bud Cauley, who thought his career was over from crushing injuries in a 2018 car crash in Ohio, fell back early and steadied himself for a 74. He tied for sixth, giving him more than enough points to fulfill his medical exemption for the rest of the year.
McIlroy faced a four-shot deficit going into the final round and roared into contention with an 8-foot birdie putt and beautiful long iron to 10 feet for eagle on the par-5 second. He took the lead for the first time when Spaun made bogey on the seventh hole.
Spaun caught a big break on the ninth hole when his second shot was in the collar of deep rough. He got relief from standing on a sprinkler head, then more relief when his drop was in the sprinkler head, leading to a clean lie. He chipped to 6 feet for birdie.
Still, McIlroy appeared to start pulling away right before and after the four-hour delay from a band of thunderstorms moving across north Florida.
He holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-5 11th to reach 12 under. Spaun, playing in the group behind him, was in trouble in a bunker well short of the green. Four hours later, McIlroy made a 15-foot birdie on the 12th, while Spaun barely got the bunker shot on the green and made bogey with a three-putt from some 70 feet.
“Once that bogey kind of hit me, I just tried to just fight back,” Spaun said. “I kind of went with the odds. I had nothing to lose. Now I’m trying to catch Rory, and I can’t really control what he does, but I can control what I do, and I just started committing to my shots and my swing and trusting it more.
“When I’m hunting, it’s easier to let it go. Whereas, starting the round I was a little tentative, a little scared and stuff,” he said. “I think it put me in a pretty comfortable spot to finish off the round.”
McIlroy fanned a drive well right on the 14th, couldn’t reach the green, leading to bogey. Even so, the one-quarter inch of rain softened the green. The 15 mph wind all but vanished. The Stadium course was vulnerable.
McIlroy, however, missed a birdie chance from just inside 6 feet on the 15th and didn’t judge the speed of the green on the par-5 16th on his chip, leaving it 12 feet short. Another miss.
Behind him, Spaun threw a dart to a foot on the 14th for birdie, and chipped tight at the 16th for a birdie that tied him for the lead.
Both found land on the island at the 17th — McIlroy against the collar for an awkward stab at his 15-foot birdie attempt, Spaun lagging beautifully from 45 feet on a putt that is slow up the slope and races to the pin.
Two-time defending champion Scottie Scheffler was never really in the mix. He went 15 straight holes without a birdie between the third and fourth rounds, made only one birdie on Sunday and closed with a 73 to tie for 20th.
“Being able to repeat here was very special and I would have liked to have done it a third time,” Scheffler said. “At the end of the day, I just didn’t have what it took this week. The guys that are ahead of me on the leaderboard — there’s many of them, so they obviously played better than I did.”
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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