Rory McIlroy rewrites record books with PLAYERS win

Rory McIlroy has won The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass, defeating in JJ Spaun in a Monday play-off.

The pair returned to HQ this morning after darkness halted play on Sunday night, with both tied on 12-under-par.

It was a comfortable three-hole shootout for McIlroy, who got off to the perfect start with a birdie on the par-5 16th hole before avoiding trouble on the iconic 17th.

The same couldn’t be said for one-time PGA Tour winner Spaun, who found the water on the devilish par-3 and lost his slipping grasp on the flagship title courtesy of a triple-bogey six.

And with a par on the final hole, McIlroy secured PGA Tour win no. 28, becoming only the eighth player to win multiple PLAYERS titles. Of course, he also won $4.5 million.

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“It’s really nice,” he told Golf Channel after lifting the trophy. “Seeing what Scottie [Scheffler] did last year going back-to-back, you know he’s been on an unbelievable run and I think it’s inspired all of us to try to be better.

“I know I need to better if I want to compete with him. I’ve knuckled down and worked hard, so it’s nice to tie him with this – and Tiger – but I’m unbelievably proud.

“I went home last night thinking that I should have had this, but I reset, didn’t have a great nights sleep, and made the swings I needed to today in tough conditions.”

McIlroy didn’t bring his usual best off the tee for most of the week, hitting less than half of the fairways over the four rounds.

That makes him only the second champion to win on the Stadium Course, doing that. But McIlroy insists he is more of a complete player nowadays.

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“I did it a different way this week, I had to putt well, I needed to chip well, I played a lot of good shots from this pinestraw – I saw way too much pinestraw this week,” he said.

“But, yeah, if one part of my game isn’t there, I have other parts to bail me out and that’s a really nice feeling to have in your golf game.”

Meanwhile, in his last 25 worldwide starts, McIlroy has won five times, finished runners-up three times and missed just one cut.

And following his win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, it’s the first time McIlroy has won multiple times on US soil before The Masters.

That elusive green jacket is firmly in his sights.

He added: “I’m trying to win golf tournaments and whatever that adds up to at the end of my career, I know that I’ll have left everything out there and squeezed every ounce of juice out of what I have. And I’ll be really proud of that.”

John Turnbull A graduate of the University of Stirling, John joined the bunkered team in 2023 as a Content Producer, with a responsibility for covering all breaking news, tour news, grassroots content and much more besides. A keen golfer, he plays the majority of his golf at Falkirk Tryst Golf Club. Top of his 'bucket list' is a round of Pebble Beach... ideally in the company of Gareth Bale.