More golf at TPC Sawgrass is coming.
Seventy-two holes weren’t enough, as Rory McIlroy and J.J. Spaun will play a three-hole aggregate playoff on Monday for the Players Championship title.
Storms caused a four-hour weather delay, with play restarting at 5:15 p.m. EST. Despite being able to finish a full four rounds, the sunset prevented the playoff from being played on Sunday.
Coverage will start on NBC at 9 a.m. ET. Holes Nos. 16, 17 and 18 will be played with the low total score winning.
How did we get here, though?
Spaun held the 54-hole lead by one stroke over Bud Cauley, with McIlroy four back. However, McIlroy sprung up the leaderboard with a birdie and an eagle in his first two holes. When the horn was blown, McIlroy had a one-stroke advantage over Spaun.
After play resumed, McIlroy extended his lead to two in just eight minutes. Spaun bogeyed his first hole out of the weather delay, but caught the lead again with birdies on Nos. 14 and 16.
“Once that bogey kind of hit me,” Spaun said after his final-round 72, “I just tried to just fight back. 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. Because it’s easy to kind of—now 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. I think it put me in a pretty comfortable spot to finish off the round.”
More golf awaits tomorrow.@JJSpaun’s birdie putt on the 72nd hole comes out just short to force a playoff at @THEPLAYERS. pic.twitter.com/50rTalDgL6
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 16, 2025
McIlroy parred No. 18 with a 4-foot putt, admitting it was hard to read the greens in the waning daylight. Spaun, meanwhile, playing in the final group, hit his tee shot into the pine straw right of the fairway, but knocked his approach to 30 feet and two-putted to extend the tournament another day.
The Players Championship has had a Monday finish eight times (five since it moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982). Many of golf’s most illustrious names have won the Tour's flagship event on a Monday, such as Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd, Hal Sutton, Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Fred Funk and Cam Smith.
McIlroy and Spaun hope they can add their name to the list.
“I’ve never experienced (sleeping the night ahead of a playoff) before,” McIlroy said. “I don't quite know. But yeah, it’s going to be cool to be a part of.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rory McIlroy, J.J. Spaun to Face Off in Monday Morning Players Championship Playoff.
