Twelve hours before Rory McIlroy secured the biggest win of his recent life at the Players Championship, he set the stakes quite nicely.
“Yeah, I think it’s important to hit the 16th fairway and get off to a good start there and then just go from there,” he said. “You’ve got to make five good swings. That’s all it is. So try to get up there, make five good swings tomorrow morning and get this thing done.”
Five good swings. Simple enough, right? McIlroy sure made it look that way on Monday morning at the Players Championship, shooting 1 over par in the three-hole playoff to snag a surprisingly pain-free victory from J.J. Spaun.
The first of those shots came off the tee box on the 16th, and McIlroy answered the bell. He started the playoff by smoking his second-longest drive of the week on the hole, a 336-yard bomb that left only 166 yards downwind into the 16th. Spaun leaked his drive out to the right, then blasted his second shot from the rough into the front bunker. A challenging par save followed, while McIlroy collected a tidy birdie, giving the World No. 2 a one-shot advantage heading to the island-green 17th.
The wind was ripping straight into the tee box on the 17th, forcing McIlroy to step off his shot, but the third of his five “good swings” was his best of the morning — a flighted 9-iron that found the center of the island green and nestled to 25 feet. McIlroy wound up three-putting, but his bogey still won the hole. Spaun, meanwhile, bombed his approach over the 17th straight into the water. He flighted his second shot, from the drop zone, to the wrong tier of the green, chipped back over to the right tier of the green, and then two-putted for a decisive triple.
The 18th was but a formality for McIlroy, and perhaps just as well, considering it was the site of the most controversial moment of his week on Tuesday — after a dunked tee shot resulted in a fan confrontation. On Monday, though, McIlroy blasted his tee shot well right of the fairway, keeping his ball dry and all but solidifying the victory. Two chips and two putts later, he’d made a bogey to finish at 1 over, beating Spaun by two shots.
With the win, McIlroy claims his biggest victory since his last Players in 2019, becoming a two-time winner of the Tour’s flagship event. With wins at each of the Tour’s two biggest events of the year to date (Pebble Beach and the Players), McIlroy sets the stage for a thrilling return to the Masters in April, the site of what would be the final leg of the career Grand Slam.
It will take much more than five good shots for McIlroy to conquer his demons at Augusta National, but after two considerable victories to start his 2025, there is no doubting that he enters the fray as one of the favorites.
