Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we’re celebrating two holidays: St. Patrick’s Day and a real-life, three-hole-playoff Monday Finish! To the news…
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GOLF STUFF I LIKE
Hitting the number.
Distance control. That’s what ultimately won Rory McIlroy the 2025 Players Championship.
Sure, there was also just “distance.” Like the towering 336-yard driver that McIlroy pummeled down the fairway on Monday’s first playoff hole, TPC Sawgrass’ par-5 16th. His opponent, J.J. Spaun, followed with a tee shot that finished in the rough and 36 yards further from the hole. Shorter and crookeder rarely wins.
But I was even more impressed by McIlroy’s next shot: a pitching wedge launched from 180 yards (yes, pitching wedge), that was judged to perfection, riding the right gust to land pin-high in the fat part of the green and stay there. That helped put him 1 up vs. Spaun.
I was even more impressed with McIlroy’s knockdown 9-iron at the par-3 17th, what he called a “three-quarter three-quarter shot”, explaining that he shortened his swing and took something off it, and then he sent his off-speed pitch to the fat of the green, where it landed and stayed. Spaun followed with 8-iron. But his launched well over the green and landed in the water. That effectively put this thing away.
Both players noted that they’d warmed up on Monday morning by hitting shots in the wind and checking Trackman numbers. McIlroy said that he’d made an adjustment when he got to the tee, in real time, he felt like the 17th green was somewhat more sheltered. He told his ball to sit. It did. Spaun? He flushed his 8-iron and, as it flew, he loved it.
“From the angle I was on, it looked like it was going to land just right on that little spine and spin back to a foot, honestly,” he said. McIlroy’s ball did what he wanted. Spaun’s didn’t. That was the difference.
At their respective peaks, legendary ball-strikers Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler had one phrase in common: pin-high. In basketball they say that great shooters only miss long or short, but basketball has neither wind nor water, which is why in golf the inverse is true: left or right is negotiable, but the best miss neither long nor short. Distance control wins.
Landing pin-high when you need to: that’s golf stuff I like.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Who won the week?
WINNER: JASON DAY DOING THE RIGHT THING
That was the beginning of the story — Day doing the right thing. Danny Walker took it from there.
Ninety minutes before Day’s Thursday tee time he withdrew. Had he started his round and pulled out partway through, nobody else would have been able to replace him. But Day gave ample heads up and so Walker, on site as an alternate, was ready. Well, almost ready.
“I was in the locker room in the restroom [when I got the call],” Walker said after his round on Saturday. “Had to take that phone call.”
Walker is a 2024 Korn Ferry Tour grad who lives locally and said he’d dreamt of a start in this tournament. He retreated to his car to give himself a moment and allowed himself to shed a tear. He shot 73-70 to make the cut on the number. Then he rallied with a 66 on Saturday morning and fired a 70 on Sunday to post the lowest 36-hole weekend total, finish T6 and walk away with a check for $843,750.
“Not even a year and a half ago, I had little to no money in my bank account. It’s a big change,” he said.
That’s a win.
He started Players week on the toilet. Then he won $850,000
LOSER: U.S. STARS
American flags dominated the top of the leaderboard; 10 of the top 13 finishers are eligible for this year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team. But they aren’t the guys you would have expected. Nobody from the 2024 U.S. Presidents Cup team seriously contended late on Sunday; Collin Morikawa was the highest finisher at T10, followed by Patrick Cantlay (T12). Scottie Scheffler, who was trying to win his third consecutive Players, was visibly frustrated en route to T20, tied with this year’s Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley. Russell Henley (T30) was the only other guy inside the top 50. That left Sahith Theegala (T52) and Xander Schauffele (72nd) plus five guys who didn’t make the weekend: Sam Burns missed the cut by two, Brian Harman and Max Homa by seven, Tony Finau by nine and Wyndham Clark, who withdrew partway through his second round.
Does this mean anything? Yes and no. TPC Sawgrass is an exacting and specific test. You can catch the wrong end of a draw or a down week and get swiftly ejected. But Schauffele and Clark are now battling injuries, while Homa and Harman have lost their form, and Scheffler is falling short of the impossibly high standard he set for himself last year. There’s plenty of talent on the U.S. side — but there’s also a good chance the group at Bethpage looks a lot different than the one from Royal Montreal.
WINNER: J.J. SPAUN, THURSDAY-SUNDAY
The funny thing about J.J. Spaun seemingly folding to Rory McIlroy in their mano-a-mano Monday showdown is that the two were in the penultimate pairing for Saturday’s third round and Spaun smoked him! McIlroy birdied 18 in that round just to lose by three shots on the day, posting 73 to Spaun’s 70.
Spaun was terrific all week: 11th in strokes gained off the tee, eighth on approach, fifth around the green, 36th putting. He hit it far and straight. He hit a bunch of greens in regulation. When he missed greens he got up and down. He survived the fire and handled the pressure and came about one full revolution from winning the tournament on 18 in regulation. His balanced play showed that this wasn’t a random one-off week from a flawed, lucky golfer. This was a guy doing everything well, a guy who’d already posted two podium finishes this season — T3 at the Sony Open and T2 at the Cognizant Classic — and would have been a deserving champion. Consolation prize: He’ll be in the Masters (with $2.7 million more in his bank account, by the way) and deservedly so: Spaun’s up to No. 25 in the world and arguably playing even better than that.
LOSER: J.J. SPAUN, MONDAY
With that said, Spaun’s Monday was a disaster. Ahead of the three-hole playoff, McIlroy referenced the need to make five good swings to win — two on the par-5 16th, one on the par-3 17th, two on the par-4 18th. By my count, Spaun went 0-for-5 on those. Blocked his opening tee shot at 16. Barely cleared the water with his approach and was fortunate to find the bunker. He made a good swing at 17 but hit the wrong shot, sending his ball into the water well long en route to triple bogey. On 18 he blew his tee shot right of the spectators and then, needing a miracle second, topped it instead. Spaun never even finished the hole; he had a 10-footer for bogey but let McIlroy settle up a four-footer instead to put him out of his misery. Happily for Spaun his 5-6-X will vanish into the ether — but it was not good.
WINNER: CARNAGE
Here’s an incomplete list of golfers that shot scores in the 80s at TPC Sawgrass: Xander Schauffele, Maverick McNealy, Rasmus Højgaard, Viktor Hovland, Rickie Fowler, Cameron Young, Nick Dunlap, Cam Davis. Ouch. But that made for proper viewing, as TPC Sawgrass is fun to watch when it’s hard. The course and the carnage were hand-in-hand winners.
LOSER: 5 HOLES WILL ZALATORIS PLAYED ON SATURDAY
As he stepped to the 14th tee on Saturday Will Zalatoris was three under par for the day and 11 under par for the tournament. Eleven under par! Zalatoris has quietly been playing solid golf — six top-25 finishes in nine starts entering the week — but as he climbed to the top of the leaderboard it was easy to imagine a world where this week would be his return to glory.
But then he made quadruple-bogey 8. He followed that with double-bogey 6. He hit one in the water at 17 and walked off with double there, too. And he finished his round with a missed four-footer for par at 18. Five holes. Nine over par. Ouch. Zalatoris rebounded with a solid Sunday 71, making birdie on his final three holes to leave on a good note. His three-under-par score for the week left him nine shots outside a playoff. What could have been…
WINNER: CUTS
The most thrilling single round thrown down by any player came from Justin Thomas on Friday. Partly it was thrilling because he logged a Players-record 11 birdies. But mostly it was thrilling because he’d shot 78 on Day 1, effectively taking himself out of the golf tournament and all but assuring he’d miss the cut. Instead he launched a stirring charge at the cut line, culminating with a curling birdie putt at 17 that found the center of the cup and sent the fans into a frenzy. (His water ball at 18 cost him the solo course record but only slightly dampened the moment.) The round would have been terrific without a cut, too. But the urgency of a Friday deadline made it far more special; here was a guy who appeared to have the weekend off rallying to the edge of contention.
WINNER: THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP
Not even a lengthy Sunday weather delay could wreck this week. The Players seems to get bigger and better every year; NBC prioritizes its coverage to help make it feel that way. We got demanding conditions, we got wind and weather, we got an interesting mix of stars and storylines on the leaderboard, we got a heart-pounding finish, we got a deserving champion. The Players did well for itself this week.
LOSER: GOLF’S DUMBEST DEBATE
I was relieved that there was almost zero discussion all week about the most tired, useless topic in golf: whether the Players should be a major championship. Eek. The Players is not a major. It’s something different. It’s the PGA Tour’s flagship tournament. I wrote a few years ago that the Players is the “Florida Masters” and I stand by that; like the Masters, the Players is a top-tier tournament held annually at a familiar venue defined by its iconic par-3s and risk-reward par-5s, it’s just that the creeks and azaleas are replaced by island greens and palm trees, the understated Augusta National clubhouse is replaced by a garish Floridian palace, the wholesome par-3 contest is replaced by a rollicking country concert — you get the idea. The Players is great. It’s not a major. Those sentences can coexist.
WINNER: RORY MCILROY
His week began in funny fashion; McIlroy went viral for an odd incident where he grabbed a heckler’s phone. Attend any tournament and you’ll clearly see that McIlroy’s approval rating is incredibly high, but the incident awoke no small group of online haters — the consensus from comment sections, gently put, is that he should have handled the incident differently.
There was another moment where McIlroy’s week could have gone awry: on No. 18 on Sunday, facing a five-footer that he ultimately needed to get into the playoff. After a lengthy read, he appeared to settled on a straight read. The putt wiggled just right, caught the edge of the hole and fell in. You can imagine the discourse if he’d missed; losing a three-stroke lead on the back nine on Sunday capped off with a short miss? Not good!
Rory McIlroy’s phone-grab rage was understandable. But also revealing
Instead, despite a cold putter late on Sunday, McIlroy walks away the deserving, satisfied champion. He’s No. 2 in the world and for the first time in a while there’s some question as to whether that’s high enough. The expectations for Augusta National will only keep climbing, but that’s a problem for next month; this was his biggest individual win in six years and deserves more than a moment of reflection.
“I remember watching Davis Love win here back on that sort of rainy Sunday when he wouldn’t take his rain jacket off because of the superstition. I remember watching that with my dad at home,” McIlroy reflected. “I remember Craig Perks chipping in from the back of the green. Tiger’s putt, obviously, in 2001. I was always excited to sit down and watch this tournament as a kid.
“Yeah, to think that I’ve won this now a couple of times and I’ve been coming here since 2009 — 10-year-old Rory would think this was really, really cool.”
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OTHER WINNERS
These guys are good, too.
Joaquin Niemann won LIV Golf’s Singapore event by five strokes thanks to a Sunday 65; he finished 17 under for the week. Niemann is now a four-time LIV champ; only Brooks Koepka, who finished second this weekend, has won more. Now he turns his eyes to major championship season…
Joshua Berry, 19-year-old Brit, won his first professional tournament at the Kolkata Challenge on the HotelPlanner Tour (read: Challenge Tour) on the second hole of a four-man playoff.
And Gina Kim won on the Epson Tour; the former Duke standout played on the LPGA Tour in 2023 and 2024 and is in good position to play her way back there after a victory at the IOA Golf Classic.
SHORT HITTERS
Five stories of varying import.
1. Somehow we go from the Players Championship conclusion Monday morning to the TGL semifinals Monday night. Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Cameron Young of New York Golf Club taking on the favorites at Los Angeles GC: Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood and Sahith Theegala. Tuesday night The Bay will play Atlanta Drive. The window for this league seems about right; it’d be surreal to sprinkle this any closer to major championship season.
2. Phil Mickelson brought his flamethrower to Twitter to claim that Joaquin Niemann isn’t just a top-five player in the world but is actually No. 1. Mickelson was clearly trying to stir up some fun, but just out of interest, how high could we get Niemann? He has won two of his last three LIV events and clearly has one of the highest ceilings in the world. On his circuit, is he better than Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton and Brooks Koepka? On the PGA Tour is he better than Scheffler, McIlroy and Schauffele? Anything is possible. DataGolf, which includes LIV pros in its rankings, has Niemann at No. 7 in its current ranking. We’ll get more complete answers at the majors.
3. Charley Hull, who has laid out her ambitions for a faster 5k this year, said in an Instagram story that she’s quitting smoking. “If I pick up a cigarette in the next two months I’ll give you 10 grand, and I’m shaking on that,” she told fellow English pro Ryan Evans. Hull is inside the top 10 in the world; this year it’s clear she’s hoping her clubs will make more noise than her smokes.
4. Tiger Woods underwent surgery for a ruptured achilles tendon as he began ramping up for Masters prep; it’s tough to know what this means for Woods long term, but it’s brutal news in terms of any hopes for a competitive 2025 season.
5. Bryson DeChambeau revealed in a video that he tries to make contact with a specific piece of dimple pattern on the golf ball when he’s hitting short putts.
ONE SWING THOUGHT
Rory McIlroy on backing off.
Did you notice McIlroy stepping off some big shots this week? That’s intentional.
“It’s just the wind is so gusty,” he said. “And you just get a gust, and I’m standing over it like, ‘do I back off, do I not back off?’ I don’t know, I seem to back off more than others, and I don’t know if I’m just more sensitive to the wind or the gusts than some others.
“But when it gets gusty like that, yeah, I do, I want to feel totally comfortable when I’m over the ball and pulling the trigger.”
ONE BIG QUESTION
Who’s third-favorite for Augusta?
Suddenly there are two big-time favorites and there’s everybody else; Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are the consensus top two at this moment in time, and Masters futures reflect that. But where do you go with No. 3 on the odds board? Is it World No. 3 Schauffele, who won two majors last year but was some combination of injured and rusty en route to Sunday 81? Is it Ludvig Aberg, who finished second last year and just won at Torrey Pines? Is it DeChambeau, the defending U.S. Open champ? Is it Rahm, the consensus big dog on LIV? Is it Morikawa, who has two runner-ups and hasn’t finished worse than T17 in five starts this year? That’s not even factoring in Mickelson’s pick, Niemann — or Koepka, who should never again get slept on.
Who ya got?
ONE THING TO WATCH
The 500,000-pound move.
Is it absurd that the folks at TPC Sawgrass dug up a 500,000-pound tree and moved it across property so that it could hang over the tee shot at No. 6, making things that much less comfortable for the pros? Of course it is! But it made for an intriguing story (and a terrifying visual).
NEWS FROM SEATTLE
Monday Finish HQ.
I’m not sure how national these ads were but plenty of my Seattle-area YouTube TV subscribers were getting fed consistent ads for the floating island green at the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course in Idaho. I was picturing the marketing meeting where the resort decided to go all in on Players Week, which is definitely the top week of the year when it comes to island green discourse. But unlike No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass, which is connected to land, No. 14 at Coeur d’Alene literally floats and requires a boat to access. And now I’m tempted to make the trek.
Maybe I’ll see you there. In the meantime, see you here next week!
Before you go, a quick request: If you like the Monday Finish, subscribe for free HERE to get it in your email inbox!
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
