Schauffele, McIlroy taking different paths
Opening round is study in contrast for leaders
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — It’s been a PGA Tour season for the young, the unknown and the obscure to shove their way into trophy ceremonies.
There have been four first-time winners. The first amateur won on Tour in 33 years. The first Frenchman won in 117 years. Three winners have come from outside the top 100 players on the World Golf Ranking.
But on a glorious spring day on Florida’s First Coast the stars decided to waste no time in surging to the top of the leaderboard on Thursday in the first round of the 50th Players Championship.
There was even a special guest: Jack Nicklaus, who won the first Players in 1974 at the Atlanta Country Club and got the tournament off to a running start when he won three of the first five.
“When you have a day like today, you can shoot some low scores,” the 18-time major champion told NBC’s Roger Maltbie. The morning wave did exactly that. Rory McIlroy, ranked second in the world and five years removed from winning the 2019 Players, birdied his last hole at the par-5 ninth to bounce back from a double-bogey at No. 7, and world No. 6 Xander Schauffele hit superb recovery shots at Nos. 5 and 7 to preserve a bogey-free day as they finished tied for the clubhouse lead at 7-under-par 65.
Schauffle posted his career-low score at the Stadium Course.
“Just playing good golf ... pretty confident with where my game’s at,” said Schauffele, who tied for second in his first Players in 2018 but has struggled since the tournament moved back to March. “I’ve been struggling with the putter a little bit, but it was nice to see some putts go.”
McIlroy at the top despite finding water twice
McIlroy would have not only been in the sole lead but could have threatened the course record had it now been for wayward tee shots at Nos. 18 and 7 that found water on the left. He managed to bogey the 18th hole but missed a 10-foot bogey putt attempt at the seventh.
He still rallied with his closing birdie and wasn’t about to quibble with his best Stadium Course score since the second round in 2019, when he went on to win.
“I’m not sure how the strokes gained approach stats look like, but it’s probably been one of my best days in a while, which is really nice,” McIlroy said of his iron play, which produced 15 greens in regulation.
“The feeling is good with the irons ... the feeling with the driver and the 3wood is just a little bit different, but as long as I remind myself on the tee box that okay, this is a wood, and I get on the fairway, and this is an iron, and I’ve got two different feels and two different thoughts, then it’s okay.
Nick Taylor of Canada didn’t make a bogey in posting a 6-under 66, with birdies at four of six holes at point on the back nine. The defending champion of his country’s national open, Taylor put on a short-game clinic, getting up and down all eight times he missed the Stadium Course greens.
Another shot behind is one of the Tour’s young sensations, Ludvig Åberg, who won the final tournament of the 2023-23 season, the RSM Classic at the Sea Island Club. Aberg made eagles at Nos. 2 and 16 in his Players debut.
Jason Day, the 2016 Players champion, matched that 5-under and did it without a bogey.
Aberg, who started his round at No. 10, set his eagles up by blasting drives of 331 yards at No. 16 and 324 yards at No. 2, then hit second shots to just under 8 feet at the 16th and 12 feet at the second.
Day birdied two of his last three holes, Nos. 7 and 9.
Tom Hoge doesn’t have the star caliber of McIlroy, Schauffle or Day, but he did set the tournament record with a 62 last year and checked in with a bogey-free 67 that was highlighted by a birdie at No. 15 on a 10-foot putt and an eagle at No. 16 on a 14-footer.
Schauffele made two spectacular saves
Schauffele kept his round together with two remarkable second shots at two of the most difficult holes on the front nine, the par-4 fifth and seventh. He nearly drove into the water on the right at No. 5, with the ball coming to rest on a bank between a bunker and the lake.
Schauffele had an uphill stance but powered a short iron from 152 yards out to within 3 feet of the hole, dropping it for a birdie.
He sliced his drive to the right at No. 7 and had 183 to the hole. He used an 8-iron to loft the ball over the trees and in front of the green. He chipped up and made a 5-footer for par.
“I wouldn’t want to re-hit a few of those,” he said.
McIlroy’s initial drop at No. 7 disputed
McIlroy came off a 15-foot birdie putt at No. 6 to get to 8-under and the sole lead but had a long wait on the seventh tee behind Schauffele’s group (Tommy Fleetwood also had trouble on the hole).
McIlroy then pushed the tee shot into the water. There was a 6-minute discussion with a rules official and playing partners Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland about where McIlroy initially wanted to drop.
“I think Jordan was just trying to make sure that I was doing the right thing,” McIlroy said. “I was pretty sure that my ball had crossed where I was sort of dropping it. It’s so hard, right, because there was no TV evidence. I was adamant. But I think, again, he was just trying to make sure that I was going to do the right thing.”