Strap in – Sawgrass is about to turn into a wind tunnel. Gusts of up to 35mph are forecasted to sweep over the Stadium Course on the weekend, as glorious Ponte Vedra is transformed into Pontypridd.
Only the resilient will survive here at The Players Championship, as the PGA Tour’s flagship event is blown off course. In the old days Rory McIlroy would not have fancied it at all and would have pointed out that, no, he was not brought up on a ravaged Ulster links but on a tree-protected parkland.
Yet now, at 35 he is a different player and a different person and the mood is portentous but positive. He prevailed at Pebble Beach in similar conditions last month and is ready to batten down and batter away again.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I’ll just be trying to control my ball flight, trying to hit different shots, trying to play with some creativity. This course is challenging enough, but with a wind like that… yeah, I’m excited for that challenge.”
McIlroy will be pleased that his driving looks to have returned to its former peerlessness. In Thursday’s 67 he hit only four fairways and owed his low number to a sharp short-game and some wonderful recovery. This time he located the cut stuff 11 out of 14 times.
“I hit more fairways in six holes today than I did in 18 yesterday,” he said, explaining how he rid his swing of the gremlins in an emergency range session on Thursday evening.
“I was getting a little underneath it, just getting a little too much sort of side bend coming down, in transition. I’m trying to keep my right side a little higher and just try to cover it a bit more – that was really the thought. I was so much better off the tee. Got it in play much better and then from there was able to give myself some opportunities and obviously make some birdies. I couldn’t quite continue that on to the back nine.”
Indeed, this round was a microcosm of his experience here. Starting on the 10th, he chipped on his first hole and was five-under when he reached the first tee. But two bogeys in the last four holes, saw him record a 68 and fall back to nine-under, two off the early halfway pace set by Australian Min Woo Lee (66) and American Akshay Bhatia (66).
In the last 12 years, he is a combined 56-under for the back nine (20 shots fewer than the next best) and seven-over for the front nine. Is he baffled by that staggering differential? “Not really – the front nine’s much harder,” the 2019 champion said. “Look, I just feel like that inward-nine sets up well for me. Over the years I have definitely been more comfortable on that nine than the front nine.”
In light of this, if this comes down to the stretch on Sunday, McIlroy will surely be an overwhelming favourite, although world No 1 Scottie Scheffler (70), looking for a third Players title in succession, is in touch on five-under and the in-form Collin Morikawa (65) is on the same mark as McIlroy.
Tommy Fleetwood is on seven-under, as he tries to become the first Englishman to lift a title that some still insist on calling “the fifth major”. “With that wind arriving it’ll be a completely different test,” the world No 10 said, after a 66. “You will have to be relentless and patient out there.”
