You can probably tell how intensely you adore a particular golf club if you are prepared to pay more than £700 for a taxi firm to pick it up from your house and bring it to you more than 200 miles away. Yet for Rory McIlroy, this will prove money exceedingly well spent if he collects the £3.5 million first prize here at the Players on Sunday.
At nine-under, McIlroy is only two off the halfway pace set by Australian Min Woo Lee and American Akshay Bhatia and, with his form off the tee suddenly returning to its former peerlessness, he has a huge opportunity to win this title for a second time. And the reason for the transformation could be down to a radical decision he made last weekend.
For the Arnold Palmer Invitational, McIlroy switched his trusty Taylormade Qi10 driver for the new Qi35 version, but after three rounds he was struggling and wanted to go back to the older model which helped him win at Pebble Beach last month. It was not that straightforward, however.
He was in Orlando and the club was back in his Palm Beach mansion where he resides with wife Erica and daughter Poppy. That is when a member of his backroom staff reached for the mobile phone and clicked on the Uber app. A few hours later, McIlroy was reunited with his favourite weapon and an Uber driver was just as happy after being handed a £250 tip.
The story was first reported by Golfweek, with Telegraph Sport later confirming the sizeable gratuity. “It was fully deserved,” an insider in the McIlroy camp said. “That man was delivering precious cargo.”
McIlroy could still manage only a 72 in that final round and was extremely erratic with his driving in the opening 67 here. But that is normal enough as it sometimes takes a few rounds to discover the old “feels” after switching back to the discarded.
After only hitting four fairways on Thursday – the world No 2 somehow managed to record the five-under beginning courtesy of a sharp short-game and some supreme recovery shots – he located 11 out of 14 on Friday. “I hit more fairways in six holes today than I did in 18 yesterday,” McIlroy said, explaining how he exorcised the tee-box 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 and was able to give myself some chances to make birdies. I couldn’t quite continue that on to the back nine.”
Starting on the 10th, he chipped in on his first hole and was five-under when he reached the first tee. But two bogeys in the last four holes saw him post a 68. A tale of two halves, but this round was a microcosm of his experience here at Sawgrass.
In the last 12 years, he is a combined 56-under for the back nine (20 shots fewer than the next best) and a collective 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.”
In light of this, if this comes down to the stretch on Sunday, McIlroy will surely be the favourite on a weekend when the gusts are forecast to reach 35mph. His rediscovered control with the driver could be vital. However, it will be a tough leaderboard to top. World No 1 Scottie Scheffler (70), looking for an unprecedented third Players success in a row, is in touch on five-under and the in-form Collin Morikawa (65) is on the same mark as McIlroy.
Tommy Fleetwood is lurking on seven-under, as he tries to become the first Englishman to win a 51-year-old event 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 his 66. “You will have to be relentless and patient out there.”
It is highly doubtful that we will see anything like Justin Thomas’s course record-equalling 62. It was 16 shots better than the former world No 1’s opening round and hurtled him from six-over to four-under.
