Rory McIlroy leads by one as play suspended due to a storm at the Players Championship
PLAY SUSPENDED: Rory McIlroy leads the Players Championship by one shot as play is suspended due to a storm. Pic: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Rory McIlroy climbed into the lead with seven holes to finish while Shane Lowry stole some ground and nearly escaped before the storm suspended play Sunday afternoon at the Players Championship.
While Rory McIlroy nurses a one-shot lead after holing a 13-foot putt for birdie on the 11th hole, Lowry churned his way all the way up to a tie for 17th with six birdies through 16 holes in the final round. His bid for a clean sheet, however, ended with a double bogey after pulling his tee shot into trouble left of the par-3 eighth hole. The horn blew after a sharp clap of thunder with Lowry in the ninth fairway.
McIlroy was making it look easy with an ideal birdie-eagle start, but it proved anything but easy from there as he worked to erase a four-shot deficit at the start of the final round. He scrambled for a series of pars after missing either the fairway or the green before finally striping one down the center of the seventh fairway only to roll into a divot. He pulled his subsequent wedge in a brutal spot to try to save par from a bunker and made bogey to fall out of the three-way lead with Akshay Bhatia and J.J. Spaun.
But a bounceback birdie on the par-3 eighth and another on 11 pushed McIlroy to 12-under, one ahead of Spaun well the horn blew.
Tom Hoge is at 6-under on the day (10-under overall) and faces a 17-foot birdie putt on 18 that could set the clubhouse target at 11. Bhatia and late alternate Danny Walker are both on 10-under and two shots behind McIlroy through 12 holes. Bud Cauley is alone in sixth at 9-under through 10 holes.
After fighting for three days to come to terms with TPC Sawgrass, Lowry got things going with four consecutive birdies on 13, 14, 15 and 16 n his opening nine on Sunday morning to charge 25 places up the leaderboard by the time he made the turn as the field raced to try to beat the bad weather that was rolling toward the course.
Lowry’s usual strengths were back in his bag on Sunday morning, as he hit every fairway on his opening nine and didn’t miss one until the first hole. In blustery conditions the previous morning, Lowry actually lost more than 3.6 strokes to the field off the tee and actually ranked 72nd of the 72 players who made the cut in a strokes gained category he typically ranks among the best on tour in.
He had climbed 34 spots in the field to T17 before his untimely double, but still 4-under on the day when play was halted as he seeks picking up valuable world ranking and FedEx Cup points after three somewhat frustrated days shooting 72-71-74.
