Rory McIlroy becomes only the second player in history to complete achievement at the Players Championship

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Rory McIlroy won the second Players Championship of his career on Monday in a three-hole playoff against J.J. Spaun.

The final round was delayed for so long on Sunday afternoon that by the time McIlroy and Spaun finished, it was too dark to continue.

The pair returned the next day for what turned out to be a one-sided contest as the Northern Irishman cruised to victory.

McIlroy joined the likes of Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler on the eight-man list of two-time Players champions, while he also became only the second man to achieve something else.

• READ MORE: What has been said about Rory McIlroy since his Players Championship win which Dan Rapaport finds totally ‘bizarre’

Rory McIlroy joins Cam Smith in Players Championship history books

The strongest part of McIlroy’s golf game is undoubtedly his driving. He consistently hits the ball well over 300 yards with impressive accuracy.

Adam Scott even said recently that McIlroy’s driving is better than Tiger Woods in his prime. That’s the level we’re talking about here.

So, one would assume that his driving must have been excellent at last week’s Players Championship, but that was actually not the case.

Indeed, the world number two missed more than half of the fairways with his driver – something only Cam Smith had done previously en route to victory.

Cam Smith vs Rory McIlroy driving accuracy

Smylie Kaufman praised McIlroy for overcoming his “inability” to hit fairways and joining Smith in the history books with that interesting statistic.

“To your point about his inability to hit fairways this week, I think he was the second player ever to make less than half of his fairways and still win the tournament.

“I’ve got to give him credit for the rest of his game throughout the week. He showed a lot of artistry in the pine straw, with recovery shots.

“When he was in the fairway, he was good at executing and making birdies and when he was in trouble, avoiding double bogeys and finding a way to make pars, keeping bogey avoidance extremely high.

“The Players Championship is all about hitting greens and avoiding disaster and Rory was able to do that this week. Whereas, in years past, I feel like he would tend to have a lot of big numbers in this event.”

Rory McIlroy’s outstanding performance on 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass

Kaufman added that McIlroy’s victory was summed up by his performances on the iconic 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass.

“I know he’s won this tournament before but I just think about the 18th hole. How many times have we seen him hit it in the water on that hole?

“This year, he birdied the 18th hole three days in a row. He played it five times and he was three under on the week. That’s pretty impressive.”

The last hole might not be as intimidating as the ‘island green’ 17th but there’s still plenty that can go wrong – not that it did for Mcilroy on this occasion.