PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — As much as J.J. Spaun wanted to win the Players Championship, putting up an excellent fight in the process, Rory McIlroy needed to capture the PGA Tour’s flagship event on Monday.
There have been too many close calls, too many disappointments, too many high-profile moments of distress over the past few years for McIlroy to have walked away from north Florida without such an important victory.
It is almost unfair, certainly telling, to put that kind of burden on McIlroy, who long-ago established himself among the game’s greatest players.
But even he admitted in the aftermath of his three-hole aggregate playoff victory over Spaun at TPC Sawgrass that he was uneasy in the blustery, cool conditions Monday morning that would see the players take on the 16th, 17th and 18th holes.
“Honestly, standing over that tee shot on 16 this morning is the most nervous I've been in a long time,” McIlroy said.
That he blasted it 336 yards into the fairway and put Spaun on the defensive from the outset spoke a lot to McIlroy’s resolve after letting an opportunity to win on Sunday get away.
McIlroy birdied that par-5 16th hole to Spaun’s par and then effectively put away the playoff when he hit the green on the par-3 17th and Spaun surprisingly airmailed the green into the water.
The victory was the 28th of his PGA Tour career, his second at the Players following a 2019 win and helped him join Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler as the only players with multiple major titles and two or more Players wins.
But the closing holes of Sunday’s final round weighed on him, much as some other tough finishes did over the past year – namely last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst, where he finished second to Bryson DeChambeau.
“I think when I put myself in that position and I'm leading by three with six holes to go, I expect myself to win. It's more my expectations rather than anyone else,” McIlroy said. “When you don't get it done — I was disappointed that I needed to come back this morning, but I couldn't let that mind frame linger for too long, and I had to reset and try to get a good night's sleep and come out this morning committed to get the job done.”
Nobody would have paid much mind if McIlroy had a poor final round or even an average one and posted a top-10 while looking ahead to the Masters.
But McIlroy’s 68 on Sunday closed a four-stroke deficit and he pushed ahead by three strokes with five holes to go. That he was unable to finish off a win — he missed a 5-footer for birdie at the 15th hole and failed to get up and down for a birdie at the 16th — brought back haunting memories of some other disappointments, namely last year’s U.S. Open.
There was also a close call at the Irish Open where he led over the closing holes and a playoff defeat to Billy Horschel at the BMW PGA Championship.
Even with subsequent victories at the DP World Tour Championship and earlier this year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a disappointing defeat at a high-profile event with the Masters looming would certainly not have lessened any such questions.
“I would say I was a little disappointed last night, but I also was mindful that I couldn't feel that way, that I needed to reset,” McIlroy said. “Once I got back to the hotel, I just tried to sort of forget about it and had some room service, watched a little bit of “Devil Wears Prada” and went to bed. That was basically it.
“Then when I woke up this morning — I woke up at 3:00 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I was as nervous as I can remember. So yeah, there's a lot of thoughts that are racing through your head and you're trying not to look at your phone and you're trying to sleep, but I was up.”
McIlroy said Sunday that he needed to make five good swings and that’s what he did. The tee shot followed by another onto the green at 16 set the tone. His 9-iron shot to the back middle of the green.
Spaun used an 8-iron and said afterward he believed it was still the correct club. McIlroy hits it farther than him and even afterward — while watching a replay — Spaun was stunned it flew the green.
“I had no idea that that ball was even long,” said Spaun, whose lone PGA Tour victory came at the 2022 Valero Texas Open. “I thought if anything it was short, maybe plugged in the bunker or stuck on top of the hill.
“Look how high it is,” Spaun said while watching the replay. “It's floating. I almost wanted to say "get up" because it just looked like it was going to be short. Anyways, I was stunned. I couldn't believe it was long.”
That mistake effectively ended the tournament, a bitter blow for a player who was a couple of golf ball revolutions away on Sunday from a birdie putt dropping for victory.
McIlroy knows all about that kind of heartbreak. Not only did he have his U.S. Open, Irish Open and BMW frustrations, but there is still the memory of his 2023 U.S. Open runner-up finish to Wyndham Clark and his third-place finish at the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews behind Cam Smith.
“I think we've all had periods where we've felt like that,” McIlroy said. “I've had to go through it. I've had my heart broken a lot over the last few years when I've had chances on Sundays and it hasn't quite materialized.
“But we all have to go through it, or at least all of us not named Tiger Woods. It's a part of the process, it's a part of the learning journey, and ultimately those are the days that make us better.”
Those close calls still sting, but taken in their totality, it simply adds to a remarkable overall record.
In his last 25 events, McIlroy has five wins, three runner-up finishes, 14 top-5s and 22 top-25 finishes while missing just one cut.
And at age 35, he shows no signs of slowing down.
But a big one awaits in three weeks. McIlroy said he will play once more before the Masters, where he will again attempt to complete the career Grand Slam.
Perhaps his flirtation with failure, his pangs of uneasiness over the last few days will serve him well. Because nothing is ever easy, as McIlroy himself can attest.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy Got the Win He Desperately Needed at the Players Championship.
