McIlroy in hunt among unheralded leaderboard,  but storms ahead at Sawgrass

In winds that should have felt right at home for Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, both Irishmen starting at opposite ends of the weekend field got schooled by their unheralded playing partners.

Unheralded, in fact, could be the story of the PGA Tour’s flagship event, with only five top-25 players in the world among the top 20 on the leaderboard at TPC Sawgrass heading into the final round. 

Due to forecasted foul weather on Sunday afternoon, final-round tee times for the Players will run from noon to 2pm Irish time with the field being sent out in threesomes off the first and 10th tees.

J.J. Spaun flushed a 25-footer to save par on 18 to stake himself to the 54-hole lead at 12-under par after a 2-under 70 playing with McIlroy. He’s one shot ahead of Bud Cauley, who got into the field on Monday at an alternate and shot 66 in the winds Saturday to climb to 11-under.

“I’m sure people have their opinions or doubts,” Spaun said of his relative no-name status atop the flagship event leaderboard. “But I’m playing good, and as long as I believe that I can win this thing, that’s all I really care about.” 

Tied for third is 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover and Alex Smalley. McIlroy birdied the treacherous 18th hole for the third straight day to shoot 71 and put himself in the penultimate threesome tied for fifth with Corey Conners and Akshay Bhatia. At 8-under, McIlroy is four shots behind Spaun after starting the day just two behind co-leaders Bhatia and Min Woo Lee.

“Not out of it by any means,” McIlroy said. “The wind is supposed to still be blowing tomorrow, so yeah, it was nice to birdie (18) just to get one closer to J.J. on the last.” 

McIlroy bled away a handful of strokes with unforced errors and he struggled with adjusting to the slower pace of the greens. He three-putted from 13 feet for bogey on the fifth, drove into the water on the down-wind par-5 ninth and settled for par, flew the par-5 11th to swallow another par, a couple of tentative pitches led to a sloppy bogey on the short 12th, bogeyed from the fringe on the par-3 13th, failed to birdie the par-5 16th from 36-feet pin-high left of the green and then three-putted 17 after under-clubbing off the tee.

“I feel like I played better than I scored,” McIlroy said. “All the bogeys I made were really soft. Three-putt on 5. Sort of made a mess of 12, three-putted 13, three-putted 17. … Most of the dropped shots were from around-the-green mistakes rather than tee to green. I felt like I hit the ball pretty well, controlled my flight. It was nice to make a birdie on 18 at least and see one putt go in.” 

McIlroy is the biggest name in the hunt on a volatile course that can yield charges and disasters. He found himself just trying to stay within arm’s length of Spaun heading to Sunday.

“I knew J.J. was playing well and I was obviously keeping a close eye on what he was doing and trying to stay somewhat in touch with him,” McIlroy said. “I saw there that a few guys struggled on the way in. This golf course on the best of days can do that, but whenever the conditions are like this, there’s some big numbers lurking out there.” 

Spaun – a one-time PGA Tour winner at the Texas Open in 2022 who started the year outside the OWGR top-100 but has climbed to No. 57 with a T3 this season at the Sony Open in Hawaii and runner-up two weeks ago at the Cognizant Classic – was leaking on the way in with bogeys on 15 and 17 after opening a two-shot lead and almost lost another on the last before his long par putt swirled in.

“I was looking at the leaderboard just to see,” he said. “No one was doing anything crazy and I was just kind of like riding the storm out and just trying to limit mistakes and keep hitting fairways and greens. I saw Bud shot a really good round, and I knew he was clubhouse leader, so I knew if I was anywhere around 11 to 12 (under), that would be a good spot to go into tomorrow.” 

Cauley got bounced from the field when Karl Vilips won last week in Puerto Rico but got in when Lee Hodges withdrew on Monday. Cauley grew up playing junior golf in Ponte Vedra Beach and has played Sawgrass countless times.

“It’s probably definitely the best round I’ve played around here,” Cauley said. “I grew up here, lived here for a little while after college, but I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve played here. … A bunch, and that was the best I’ve played.” 

In the first group of the day, Lowry carded a 2-over 74 after finishing with a double while the late alternate he played with, Danny Walker, carded a 6-under 66 to climb from the cut line to a six-way tied for eighth at 7-under that includes Sepp Straka and Patrick Cantlay.

Two-time defending champion and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is T16 and seven shots off the lead at 5-under after an even-par 72. He finished in frustrating fashion with bogeys at 16 and 17 and will start Sunday seven strokes behind the lead a year after rallying for six behind to win his second straight Players.

“You never know, maybe do something crazy tomorrow,” Scheffler said. “You’ve got guys shooting some pretty low numbers this week. So going into tomorrow, just try and get off to a good start and go from there.”