Had you only watched the playoff between Rory McIlroy and J.J. Spaun on Monday at the Players Championship, you would have been forgiven for wondering how exactly the pair ended up on the same score after 72 holes.
Rory McIlroy‘s apparent comfort in the situation was evident as he almost immediately took control of the playoff with J.J. Spaun – to the extent that the contest was all but over once Spaun put his tee shot on the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass in the water.
With that, you could have easily forgotten that it was Spaun who came within inches of winning the Players Championship on the final hole on Sunday. The 34-year-old left his birdie putt on the 18th agonisingly short.
It was a second life for McIlroy, who really should have wrapped up the tournament a lot sooner. The Northern Irishman led by three shots at one stage down the back nine on Sunday. And yet, he opened the door for Spaun to so nearly win the event.
How Rory McIlroy reacted to throwing away a three-shot lead on Sunday at the Players Championship
But McIlroy returned with a point to prove on Monday. He smoked his tee shot down the fairway on 16, and then found the green with minimal fuss on the 17th.
And speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Todd Lewis explained that he was almost a little taken aback by how well McIlroy handled squandering his commanding lead in the final round.
“I will say this, I noticed one thing from Sunday night, and you and I were there when he talked about his round – he had a three-shot lead on the 12th hole and suddenly, he’s tied, so I thought he might be a little p—y, a little frustrated, a lot negative, but he really wasn’t. He was kind of, ‘okay, I could’ve won it Sunday, I didn’t, I’m going to come out here and try and win it on Monday’,” he said.
“And the fact that he talked about how nervous he was on Monday, he said, ‘I haven’t been that nervous on the 16th tee’, which was his first playoff hole, in a long time. That shows, first, how much he cares, and secondly, to have the better attitude, because you’re nervous when you care. I’m impressed with the way Rory handled himself on Sunday and Monday.”
Why Rory McIlroy had been unable to convert his lead on Sunday at the 2024 US Open
It is hard not to get a little carried away by McIlroy winning for the second time on the PGA Tour before April has even arrived. The tournaments he has also won are extremely prestigious with incredibly strong fields.
But McIlroy will know that he can only make so much of a statement at PGA Tour events. Everyone knows that he is one of the most talented players the game has ever had. But the true test of where his game is at is yet to come.
Paul McGinley noted on Golf Channel after he lost the US Open last year that something changes when McIlroy finds himself under the kind of pressure which only a major can bring.
“He’s had chances to win three majors in the last two years since St Andrews with Cameron Smith. And he hasn’t lost them because his swing’s deserted him at the wrong time. He lost it because his putting went slow and when he had opportunities, he didn’t seize the initiative,” he said shortly after his loss.
“Last year at the US Open, he came back in one over par. You saw him at Quail Hollow, and he just takes the opportunity, he seizes it and he runs off into the distance and he kills the opposition – he wins. He knows how to do it, there’s enough golf game there to run off into the sunset and win tournaments.
“The difference in major championships is when the initiative is presented to him, he doesn’t run off. The initiative today was presented to him back in 13 when he made that birdie to go two shots ahead. He played 14 really poorly, he played 15 really poorly, he played 16, 17, and 18 really poorly. That was the period of time to run off into the distance.”
His words seem particularly significant given that McIlroy did threaten to blow another big lead in the final stages of a tournament on Sunday. However, he was able to recover and get across the line.
But obviously, there are only four opportunities a year now for McIlroy to prove just how much he has truly improved.
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