‘Nightmare at 17’: J.J. Spaun ejects at island green to lose Players Championship

J.J. Spaun lost his ball. 

Playing TPC Sawgrass’ famed island-green 17th on Monday morning, he couldn’t see it after its descent. He’d barrelled an 8-iron on the 130-yard par-3 during the second of three playoff holes with Rory McIlroy to decide the Players Championship, and something good was needed. On overtime’s first hole, on the par-5 16th, Spaun made par, while McIlroy birdied to take a one-stroke lead. But Spaun’s response looked promising. A minute or so earlier, McIlroy had found the green and was about 30 feet away, but Spaun’s ball was tracking toward a spot where it would land, then spin back toward the cup.  

If you were watching on the grounds, or viewing on Golf Channel, you saw it didn’t. But Spaun was bewildered.

“Where is it?” he said. 

He was seemingly then told. He seemingly didn’t believe it. 

“Where?”

Wet. Over the green. Into the water. Sunk. Like his hopes for a breakthrough win. 

“Shocked,” analyst Brad Faxon said on the broadcast.

Still, Spaun could maybe make bogey. From the drop zone, a spot about 89 yards away from the hole, he could finesse a wedge close and hope for a McIlroy three-putt. Notably, the latter happened. But after a lengthy talk with caddie Mark Carens — the second on the hole, following the tee shot — Spaun’s ball dropped short and left of the flag, about 25 feet from it, and spun back, finishing on the back-left fringe, against the green’s collar, about 40 feet from the hole. Spaun shook his head. From there, he could only chip — a patch of rough that jutted into the green sat between him and the hole — and that shot finished 10 feet past the cup. Two putts later, Spaun finished with a triple-bogey 6, and he was down three heading to the 18th hole. 

There, it was mostly ceremonial. McIlroy bogeyed again, Spaun picked up and McIlroy won his second Players and his second tournament this year. 

“A nightmare at 17,” announcer Terry Gannon said on the broadcast.

“Total nightmare,” Faxon said.  

But how? Entering Monday in search of his biggest win and his biggest payday over a 13-year career, the 34-year-old from L.A. had been mostly un-triple-bogey-like over the previous four days in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. — Spaun and McIlroy, at 12 under, had bested the rest of the field by two shots, and Spaun had not found any water until Monday morning. For his part, he said he’d hit the shot he’d wanted to, but “it just didn’t work out.” In short, golf golfed. 

But was the club choice a concern? You have to at least wonder that, after Spaun was long with the 8-iron. He’d also looked into McIlroy’s bag to see what he’d hit, and Carens had held another iron in their pre-shot huddle. But Spaun said afterward he was comfortable with the 8; a quality strike was required to fight through about a 10 mph headwind (according to the Golf Channel broadcast).

“Yeah, I was never thinking anything other than 8-iron,” Spaun said. “We were warming up on the Trackman this morning in a similar direction and getting kind of dialed in with what kind of shot I’d have to hit to fight the wind and carry the number that we were needing. It was just kind of like a nice chip 8-iron.

“Pulled an 8-iron, and even after Rory hit 9, he’s easily a club longer than me. I don’t know if I flighted it too well, but it just went through the wind. I couldn’t even tell where it was going to be. I didn’t know what to tell it, like sit, go. If anything I was leaning more towards go. But it was a great shot. It was probably six, seven feet left of the pin, just perfect if it was the right distance. I couldn’t believe it was long. It just wasn’t my luck of the gust, I guess.”

Then there were the nerves. Spaun’s human. He’d also never been in the spot before, whereas McIlroy, now a 28-time PGA Tour winner and four-time major winner, has. Afterward, Spaun admitted that the moment hit him on the opening tee shot (which he hit a touch right on the 16th hole), and analyst Jim “Bones” Mackay wondered on the broadcast whether Spaun had accounted for adrenaline on the 17th tee shot.  

“I think on the 17th here at this amazing, iconic golf course,” Mackay said, “is one of those holes where you get to, like two or three others around the world, where you just hit the club about a half a club farther because you’re just so amped up and it’s just the 17th at the Players.”

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One must also look at the time to make a decision here, too. A GOLF.com reporter clocked McIlroy’s interaction with caddie Harry Diamond at 17 seconds; Spaun’s conversation with Carens took 50. From the drop zone, Spaun and Carens talked for a minute and 10 seconds. 

“One of my favorite lines in golf is it’s more important to be decisive than it is to be correct,” Faxon said on the broadcast. “And you saw Rory McIlroy get up there almost immediately, in agreement with Harry Diamond, his caddie.”  

Speaking of his shot from the drop zone, though, Spaun said he had moved on from the water ball. But the wind was funky to him. 

“I knew I was having to make this wedge shot to have any sort of pressure on Rory and a chance to win the tournament,” he said.

“It was weird; the wind ended up being straight in on my wedge shot. It was a perfect wedge shot if it was kind of the direction it should be, kind of just left to right on that angle, maybe a touch of hurt. But then when I got on there, it was like straight into me. I’m like, this is what I needed on the first shot here. Now I have like another tweener; what am I going to try to flight another one and rinse it long again? It was such a bad number to have with that amount of wind.

“I just had to hit the shot that I knew wouldn’t go long, but then unfortunately it spun down to that little weird fringe, and a tough up-and-down from there, too. Couldn’t putt it, had to chip it, and made a 6. One, two, three, four, five, six.”