Rory Avoids Embarrassment, Scottie Isn't Having Fun, Spaun's Guts, And More Musings From The Players

It may have taken an extra day, but Rory McIlroy can now say he is a two-time Players champion after besting J.J. Spaun in Monday morning's three-hole playoff at TPC Sawgrass. While winning one of the biggest tournaments in the sport is never easy, this one felt like a must-win for McIlroy for several different reasons.

Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler finished in a tie for 20th, is hitting the ball just fine, but seems to have sunken into a mindset of borderline misery. It could be the perfect time to buy Scheffler stock for the rest of 2025.

The top two players in the world were far from the only ones to make headlines during the week that was at The Players. We'll dive into them all in a fresh edition of Par Talk. As always, any thoughts, concerns, or musings, feel free to reach out at mark.harris@outkick.com or on X @itismarkharris. 

It's More Than Fair To Call That One A Must-Win For Rory McIlroy

Rory McIlroy hit the shots, made the putts, and executed his gameplan in extremely difficult conditions over the weekend to put himself in a position to win The Players, and while he admitted after hoisting the trophy that he didn't have his best stuff throughout the week, you couldn't have drawn up a more perfect situation for him to win the golf tournament.

When the horn sounded ahead of what turned into a lengthy weather delay on Sunday afternoon, McIlroy held a one-shot lead over Spaun with seven holes left to play. He held a two-shot advantage at that point over Danny Walker, Tom Hoge, and Akshay Bhatia, who were all running out of holes to catch up while also not exactly carrying the reputations of being among the ‘killers’ McIlroy should be overly concerned about.

Then came the rain, a lot of it, which added an even larger advantage for McIlroy as the longest player on the golf course.

In what felt like the blink of an eye out of the weather delay, McIlroy was leading the tournament by three shots after a birdie on the 12th hole and a bogey from Spaun on No. 11. 

Three shots between you and the pack on a sopping-wet golf course you've previously won on is as ideal as ideal gets.

Closing the door is hard, however, and with a bogey on No. 14 followed by a very underwhelming par on the Par 5 16th, he left the door open for Spaun, who came within an inch on the 72nd hole of pulling off the unthinkable.

Not only was Spaun's birdie attempt on the 72nd hole about a rotation short of falling and giving him the win, but McIlroy somehow lipped in his par putt from inside five feet to stay tied atop the leaderboard.

Luck, even when we're talking about a generational player like McIlroy, has to be on the winner's side, and it was on his final putt in regulation. This all coming just months removed from bad luck rearing its ugly head on multiple occasions in the 2024 U.S. Open that McIlroy handed to Bryson DeChambeau at Pinehurst.

Everything pointed to McIlroy getting the job done at TPC Sawgrass with less than six holes to play, and while it may have taken 75 holes to get it done, McIlroy avoided what would have been an embarrassing loss and undoubtedly killed some demons and gained that oh-so-important confidence with the Masters looming. 

J.J. Spaun Deserves So Much Credit

Everyone expected J.J. Spaun to fade away late Sunday afternoon. He came out of the weather delay and played his first shot out of turn, made bogey on the Par 5 11th after hearing a roar from McIlory making birdie one hole ahead, and could have easily listened to that voice in his head that the Golf Gods were on Rory's side that day.

Spaun entered the week playing well to begin the year with a pair of Top 3 finishes already under his belt, but this quickly turned into an arena he wasn't exactly comfortable in. The 34-year-old's lone PGA Tour win came back in 2022, his best finish at The Players was a T-64 a year ago, he had zero Top 20 finishes in a major, and was trying to take down the most popular golfer in the world not named Tiger Woods.

None of that seemed to matter. Spaun went on to play his final five holes at two-under while executing an all-world lag putt on the Par 3 17th followed by an elite shot from the pine straw on the final hole en route to a par to force the playoff and at least give himself a chance to take down World No. 2.

A water ball on No. 17 on Monday morning ended Spaun's party, but the man had some serious fun along the way while getting put on the radar of plenty of folks who had completely dismissed him during Sunday's final round.

Look Out, World, Scottie Scheffler Is Angry

Winning nine times in 21 worldwide starts in a single season is a pace that no one can keep up in today's game. Scottie Scheffler is well aware returning to reality, at least for a stint in time, was going to happen, but that doesn't make it any easier to stomach.

Scheffler was firmly in contention in 17 of his 21 starts last year. He not only turned that level of play into an expectation but into a feeling he became incredibly used to. Scheffler has gotten a taste of those feels in each of his five starts this season with five Top 25 finishes including a pair of Top 10s, but this is a man who became a winning addict less than six months ago and hasn't been able to get back there.

Frustration has been understandably building, despite already earning $2.5 million this season, and it boiled over on multiple occasions at The Players. 

Outside of being arrested at the 2024 PGA Championship - I still can't believe that happened - Scheffler hasn't had a reason to be angry about his game or his results for the better part of 18-plus months. 

Scheffler has been a machine, a winning one, which has made us all forget he's a human, and one who was never shy to show emotion on the course before earning his PGA Tour card in 2019.

He doesn't look like he's having fun, because he isn't.

What Made This Year's Players Feel Different

This year's Players was just as important as ones of the past, but it did feel different down the stretch on Sunday, and I think the reasoning is pretty simple, and admittedly maybe a bit unfair.

The fans, the media, and certainly the PGA Tour want the biggest names in the game to be at the top of the leaderboard on Sunday. This is especially the case at The Players, the PGA Tour's marquee event that many consider the fifth major.

Rory McIlroy checked that box and won the golf tournament,  but beyond him atop the leaderboard and World No. 4 Collin Morikawa who finished T-10, Robert MacIntyre was the only other Top 15 player in the world to finish inside of 10th. 

By no means does this take anything away from the players who played their way into contention on Sunday, it just shows how much weight a flashy leaderboard carries, even when the stage is TPC Sawgrass and the purse is $25 million.

Danny Walker's Life-Changing Phone Call And Other Quick Notes From Sawgrass

Danny Walker was not in the field this week until receiving a phone call about 90 minutes before his eventual tee time letting him know that Jason Day had withdrawn with an illness. Minutes later he found himself on the teebox at TPC Sawgrass with Wyndham Clark and Jordan Spieth.

Fast-forward about 72 hours from then, and the 29-year-old now has a T-6 finish in The Players atop his resume.

Going from alternate to in the field to a T-6 finish in just your seventh career start on Tour on that stage is what dreams are made of. Walker made $272,000 on the Korn Ferry Tour a year ago, and this week he'll see a direct deposit of more than $840,000 hit his account after his performance at The Players.

Other quick and random thoughts:

 - The 16th hole at TPC Sawgrass is the best hole on the property, and it's not particularly close.

 - Akshay Bhatia is incredibly fun to watch, until he steps foot on the green. I'm not saying he was anchoring the putter on Sunday, but uh, it didn't look great.

 - Jordan Spieth is a literal drug for golf fans, and one of the great spectacles in all of sport.

 - Justin Thomas going 78-62 is one of the crazier things these eyes have ever seen, but to follow the 62 up with a one-over 73 on Saturday was predictable, unfortunately. JT's refusal to hit the easy shot is something to behold.

 - Spaun's drop on the Par 5 9th hole on Sunday afternoon was so gross that it was actually impressive. Not giving a damn about the multiple cameras on him or the pushback he was going to receive despite being completely within the rules was kind of sick. Every single human on planet Earth would have done the same thing he did if they were in the same situation.

- We have 24 more sleeps until the start of the Masters.