Players Championship returns year after pandemic shutdown
Hideki Matsuyama made a 25foot eagle putt on his final hole of the first round at The Players Championship and earned a spot in the record book as the ninth player to post a 63 at the TPC Sawgrass.
And then it was gone.
The opening round last year wasn’t complete because eight players failed to finish before dark. The entire tournament wasn’t complete because of the COVID-19 pandemic that wiped out the final three rounds at Sawgrass and the following three months in golf.
Now it’s about starting over. The defending champion is still Rory McIlroy, who won in 2019 and who began last year with a 72, leaving him nine shots behind. Today, everyone is back to even.
“I think I feel a bit better about that than Hideki does,” McIlroy said. “If I felt for anyone last year because of all this, it was Hideki. That was obviously a hell of an opening round. But it’s nice to be back, and hopefully I can get off to a better start than I did last year.”
So much has changed in a year since PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan held a news conference — media sitting shoulder to shoulder, no one wearing masks — to announce the tour was shutting down. That goes beyond the weekly testing for the coronavirus and masks required for what is now limited attendance outside the ropes.
McIlroy was No. 1 in the world at The Players last year and building momentum toward the Masters, his missing leg of the career Grand Slam. He had seven consecutive top-5 finishes around the world, including a World Golf Championship title.
He returns to Sawgrass at No. 11, out of the top 10 for the first time in three years. And after another pedestrian finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week, he is starting to search for answers.
“The good golf is in there, and I feel capable of going out and shooting good scores any week that I
play on any golf course that I play,” he said. “But it’s the days where you don’t feel so good that you need to manage it and get around in a couple under par. That’s the challenge for me right now.”
The struggle is not his alone. Rickie Fowler has gone more than two years without winning and has dropped to No. 70 in the world, with no guarantee he will get in the Dell Match Play in two weeks or the Masters next month.
The Players marks a milestone on the PGA Tour as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the first of the cancellations that led to a dozen tournaments on the schedule that were not played.
It has been two years since McIlroy won. He has played 42 times around the world since then, yet he still feels like he has a title to defend this week.
“There’s been no one else’s name added to the trophy after mine, so I guess I still am,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, it’s hard when you’re so far removed from that win. It was two years ago, and a lot has happened since. I’ll still try to rekindle those feelings and memories from two years ago, and hopefully that gives me the spark that I need to get my game in shape.”
MCILROY: TIGER COULD BE GOING HOME NEXT WEEK >> Tiger Woods is “doing better” and could be released from the hospital next week and allowed to continue his recovery at home, McIlroy revealed Wednesday.
McIlroy made the comments during an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon.
“I’ve spoken to him a little bit,” McIlroy told Fallon. “He’s doing better . ... Hopefully if things go well over the next week or so, he might be able to get home and start recovery at home, which would be great for him. See his kids, see his family.
“But yeah, he’s doing better. And I think all of us are wishing him a speedy recovery at this point.”
Woods is currently recovering at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after the Feb. 23 single-car crash that required multiple surgeries on the upper and lower portions of his tibia and fibula bones.
KOEPKA NONCOMMITTAL ON MASTERS>> Brooks Koepka is not playing in The Players Championship this week due to a sprained right knee, and he might not be back for the Masters next month.
Koepka, in a phone interview with Golf Channel, said he has additional medical consultations in the coming days and will know more about his timeframe for a potential return at that time.
“No timeframe as of right now,” he said, per Golfweek. “We will know more after the consultation.”
Koepka, ranked 12th in the World Golf Rankings, won at Phoenix and finished second at WGC-Workday, but had to back out of this week’s tournament after he was hurt at home.
PGA TOUR WILL TEST FOR COVID-19 FOR ‘FORESEEABLE FUTURE’>> The PGA Tour will continue testing players for COVID-19 for the “foreseeable future” and until a high percentage of competitors are vaccinated, commissioner Jay Monahan said.
“We will continue to provide testing for the foreseeable future and, hopefully, as we get to a high percentage of our players that have been vaccinated, we can start to pull back from the program that we know it as of today,” he said.