Late blemish can't take shine off McIlroy's Friday surge at Sawgrass

McIlroy’s late range session after his opening 67 on Thursday worked, as he went from hitting only four fairways in the first round to missing only three in the second.

“Much better. Hit it much better off the tee,” he said afterwards. “I think I hit more fairways in six holes today than I did in 18 yesterday. Yeah, got it in play much better and then from there was able to give myself some opportunities and obviously make some birdies early. Couldn’t quite continue that on to the back nine, but it was much better off the tee.” 

The Ulsterman was cruising early on Friday with a chip-in start to kick things off and made birdie on every other hole through his first 11 on the day to reach 11-under with birdies on 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 2. That’s when he finally started putting pressure on his putter to save par instead of breaking it.

He made nifty par-saving putts of 5 and 10 feet on holes 3 and 4 after putting himself in a couple of short-sided situations. After just missing a 13-footer for another birdie on the fifth, the stress finally broke on 6 where he hit from bunker to bunker and couldn’t make a 13-footer to avoid his first blemish on the card.

He saved another par from the sand with a 6-footer on the seventh but couldn’t save another from 13 feet on the ninth after smothering his second shot on the par 5 and having to pitch back out of trouble into the fairway.

“The front nine’s much harder,” he said of the side he played second on Friday. “I just feel like (the back nine), it’s nine holes that sets up well for me. I definitely, over the years, have been a little more comfortable on that nine than the front nine for sure.” 

Playing in the traditional Players marquee grouping of the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking, McIlroy largely outclassed two-time defending Players champion Scottie Scheffler and two-time Major winner last season Xander Schauffele.

Scheffler, without his A-game, is still lurking at 5-under after a 70 on Friday. Schauffele is still working his way back from a rib injury that kept him idle for the most of the first two months of the season, but he posted 1-under that is likely to extend his streak of consecutive made cuts to 59 – 10 ahead of Scheffler on the active list.

McIlroy has played in a lot of these 1-2-3 pairings through the years with a lot of different players.

“When I got to No. 1 in the world, Scottie Scheffler was, I don’t know, 12 years old, 13 years old?” McIlroy said. “So there’s always new people coming up. And I think the fact that the battles I’ve had for that No. 1 spot in the world – whether it be with Luke Donald and Lee Westwood back in the day, all the way up to Xander and Scottie now and everyone in between – it’s nice that the common denominator sometimes is me. That I’ve been able to stay there, yeah, I’m super proud of that.

“I’m really proud of my consistency. I’m really proud of my body of work over the past 15, 16 years, whatever it is. I think there’s only been maybe one or two years in there where I haven’t had a win since like 2009. I’ve always tried to show up and do my best.” 

The Players challenge will intensify with weekend wind gusts as high as 30-35 mph starting Saturday forecasted, bringing the danger lurking around TPC Sawgrass more into play. McIlroy says he welcomes it.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I think it’s going to be really important to try to flight your ball and keep it under the tree line. I think once it gets above the tree line here it can start to really get hit by (the wind). … Yeah, this course is challenging enough, but with a wind like that I’m excited for that challenge.

“Just trying to control my ball flight, trying to hit different shots, trying to play with some creativity is something that I think I’ve gotten a lot better at over the last few years.”