Golf: McIlroy wins Players Championship by one stroke in Florida

Rory McIlroy celebrated St Patrick's Day in style by becoming the first player from Northern Ireland to win the Players Championship, emerging as the last man standing to beat Jim Furyk by one stroke in Ponte Vedra, Florida on Sunday.

On a day when 15 players at one stage were within two shots of the lead, McIlroy eventually emerged from the pack, overcoming an early double-bogey by displaying enough maturity to hang tough before moving in for the proverbial kill.

McIlroy carded two-under-par 70 at the famous TPC Sawgrass course in Ponte Vedra Beach to win a championship that was first held in 1974, when it was won by Jack Nicklaus.

McIlroy finished at 16-under 272 to edge American Furyk, who with a gimme birdie at the final hole threatened to become the event's oldest winner at the age of 48.

"Sawgrass and I didn't have the greatest relationship starting off," McIlroy told reporters, referring to missed cuts in his first three appearances from 2009-11.

"It's a massive win on a course (where) I've had mixed results. I had to show a lot of character out there. Any time I looked at the leaderboard I was pleasantly surprised I hadn't fallen two or three shots behind.

"That gave me a little bit of encouragement to keep going and play a great back nine. I am just thankful that it was my turn this week."

With Furyk already in the clubhouse, the 29-year-old McIlroy knew what he had to do as he played the final three holes.

After a birdie at the par-four 15th, he used his power to reach the par-five 16th in two shots and a two-putt birdie gave him the lead.

McIlroy then safely negotiated the water-lined final two holes with tap-in pars to clinch the most prestigious tournament outside the four majors.

Furyk shot 67 to finish alone on 15-under.

FURYK DISAPPOINTED

"There's a little disappointment, thinking maybe I played well enough to win," said the American. "Rory obviously felt differently."

It was Furyk's 31st runner-up finish on the PGA Tour, the same number as Tiger Woods who has also won 80 times compared to his compatriot's 17.

Englishman Eddie Pepperell (66) and Venezuelan Jhonattan Vegas (66) finished two strokes behind McIlroy in a tie for third.

Pepperrell and Vegas sank monster birdies at the par-three 17th, Pepperell sinking a rollercoaster 50-footer before Vegas one-upped him with a 70-footer.

Overnight leader Jon Rahm floundered, the Spaniard making three bogeys in the first four holes and compounding his misery by dunking his tee shot into the water at the par-three 17th.

He shot 76 and finished equal 12th on 11-under.

McIlroy's win came after close calls at all five of his previous starts this year.

He will head to the Masters next month brimming with confidence, needing a victory at Augusta National to complete the grand slam of all four modern majors.

"I'm just really proud of myself the way I played the last few holes," he said.

"(I was thinking) why not me? This is my tournament and I've got to finish it off.

"I kept telling myself on the way to the 17th tee, just make three more good swings, that's all you need to do and this thing is yours.

"To step up and make those three good swings, it's very satisfying knowing that it's in there when it needs to be."

(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by Ken Ferris)

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Golf: Day optimistic major back pain will not return this week

Former world number one Jason Day is cautiously optimistic his back problems will not flair up and hamper his challenge at this week's Players Championship in Florida.

The Australian, the 2016 Players champion, made it through only six holes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last Thursday before back issues forced him to withdraw in pain.

"My long term confidence in terms of my back, I am not even thinking about it right now," Day told reporters at TPC Sawgrass on Tuesday.

"I feel really cautiously optimistic about how things are progressing and the way that I feel."

Day said last week that an MRI scan had revealed he had a tear in a disc in his lower back, which was causing him crippling pain when the problem flaired up.

"When pain starts shooting down my legs, that's obviously a no-go," he said.

"My back seizes up, and I can't really walk ... it feels like your world is ending. It feels like is this going to be the last time that I am going to pick up a golf club.

"It's not great mentally to come back from an injury so your confidence is hit a little bit, but overall I feel good about."

Day, who able to play 18 holes on Monday, said he had also spoken to Tiger Woods about having injections for back problems.

"My big concern was if I got them, how long would it last?" Day said.

"I have to be more disciplined with my physio and training ... We are all playing with some kind of aches and pains."

After withdrawing from the tournament at Bay Hill last week, Day decided to spend time with his family at Disney World.

That did not sit well with some on social media who wondered how he was unable to play, but was able to walk around a theme park.

"It was great," Day said. "When I have an injury, I get sad and depressed.

"I mean that's the biggest thing. I'm not going to be sitting in my bus depressed, and especially when the doctors tell me to go and walk."

Day said he was not going to let criticism on social media bother him either.

"I don't care, like, if people make memes about me. I think a lot of them are funny," Day said.

"I mean, it's fine. It is what it is. People trying to be funny and that, I get a good laugh out of it and I'm okay with that.

"You can tell between people that are being funny and people that are actually trying to ... that really hate you." 

(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina, editing Nick Mulvenney)

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Tiger fires 65, best round of year, to rise at Players

PONTE VEDRA BEACH -- Tiger Woods fired his lowest career round at TPC Sawgrass, and his best score of the year, with a seven-under par 65 Saturday to share the early clubhouse lead at the Players Championship.

The 14-time major champion took advantage of continuing hot and humid conditions to match Jordan Spieth on eight-under par after 54 holes.

The duo ended their rounds nearly 90 minutes before overnight leader and fellow American Webb Simpson was set to tee off leading by five shots at 15-under par.

The previous best Players round by Woods was a 66 while his lowest this year in his seven prior events had been a 68 as he returns to US PGA Tour play after missing most of the past two years with back injuries.

"I finally got off to a good start in birdieing the first couple of holes and I just kept it rolling," Woods said. "I played a lot of good shots out there today and it was nice to see a few putts go in.

"Overall on the whole day I just hit a lot of quality shots and a 65 was probably the highest I could have shot."

Woods had an anxious Friday afternoon wait before joining Spieth and Justin Thomas making the cut right on the one-under mark.

The 42-year old former world number one quickly lit-up the Florida course with four birdies in his opening five holes and had a huge crowd roaring with delight, cheers being heard as far as the course car parks.

Woods made the turn at six-under with birdies at seven and the ninth and went to eight-under with birdies at 11 and the short 12th hole, where he put a 40-yard chip shot to six feet.

He made his only bogey at the 14th before posting four closing pars to be tied for the clubhouse lead with Spieth, who also posted a 65.

Woods said he "felt a lot more comfortable with my driver and could be a bit more aggressive off the tees and consequently I had a lot of 9-irons and on down into the greens as the ball is just flying forever in this humidity."

"The ball is going a long way and the golf course is playing short."

If there was any disappointment in his round, Woods said it was getting himself to eight-under for his round through 12 holes but then finishing at seven-under for the day.

"I mean to be eight-under there through 12, realistically I probably could have got a couple more out of it and got to 10 for the day," he said.

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Day wrestles with pressures in quest to get back on top

Defending Players champion Jason Day said on Tuesday that life at the top in golf was great, but the pressures and demands of the game could be "suffocating".

Day, who has been struggling to cope with his mother's life-threatening illness, has not won since last year at Florida's TPC Sawgrass.

The world number three won The Players, generally regarded as the unofficial 'fifth' major, last year wire-to-wire after firing a course record-tying 63 in the first round.

The year before, he achieved a career goal with a run that included his maiden major at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits before adding two FedExCup tournament wins the next month to become world number one.

Since then, the Australian has grappled with how to find a balance between the demands that come with being at the top of the game and life away from the course.

"I could sense that being No. 1 and all that stuff was getting pretty hard mentally more so than physically, just the mental demand on you, the expectations. And it's very, very easy to get burnt out in a sense," the 29-year-old told reporters.

"As you go through your career, priorities kind of change back and forth and with what had happened earlier this year with some off-course stuff, my mind was kind of elsewhere, as you probably could imagine."

Early this year, Day was rocked by the news that his mother, Dening, was fighting lung cancer.

Now he is talking about "rebuilding to try and get back to the top of the world."

"That's what I'm trying to focus on, getting back to that winning form, getting back to the workload that I was doing and the practice and the work ethic, and hopefully the results will come after that."

Day said satisfying obligations with the media, fans and sponsors as number one weighed heavily on him and that if he was to get back on top he would do things differently, adding that he might have to say 'No' more often.

"I think with me, I've got to make it's as less stressful as possible. Make sure that when hopefully one day I get back, that I take that load of stress off my shoulders so I can just go out there and focus on golf," added Day, who trails Dustin Johnson and number two Rory McIlroy in the rankings.

"I'm a person that can't do four million things at once, and that's what it feels like when you're at the top ... it just feels like you're getting pulled in all sorts of directions and it feels like you're suffocating sometimes."

Despite the pressures, Day said getting back to number one was his top professional priority.

"I would do anything in the world to get back there," he said. "There's no other, no better feeling than being the best."

(Writing by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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No. 1 Day takes wire-to-wire Players triumph

MIAMI -- World number one Jason Day overcame a sluggish start Sunday to win the US PGA Players Championship, firing a final-round one-under-par 71 to complete a wire-to-wire victory.

Day matched the TPC Sawgrass course record with an opening-round 63 and followed with a 66 on his way to a 72-hole total of 15-under 273 for a four-stroke victory over American Kevin Chappell.

"This is up there," Day said when asked the magnitude of his 10th career US PGA triumph in a tournament often seen as golf's unofficial fifth major.

"I just wanted to win this so bad. This could possibly push me over to get into the Hall of Fame one day and I'm just glad I managed to win it."

The 28-year-old Australian took a top prize of $1.89 million (1.67 million euros) at the $10.5 million event, collecting his seventh win in 17 starts -- his fifth in a row when leading after 54 holes.

"I'm going to hold this memory for a long time," Day said.

The Aussie made bogeys at the sixth and ninth holes to carry only a two-shot edge onto the back nine, but responded with key birdies at 10 and 12 and another at the par-5 16th to hold off a host of rivals.

"I was really nervous on the front side and it showed," Day said. "Then on the back side I was able to hold on."

Chappell fired a 69 to finish second on 277, one stroke ahead of fellow Americans Justin Thomas, Ken Duke, Matt Kuchar and Colt Knost with Italy's Francesco Molinari and Japan's Hideki Matsuyama sharing seventh on 279.

It was the second start-to-finish triumph of the season for Day, who also led after every round in taking the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. Since 1980, only Tiger Woods has had two wire-to-wire US PGA wins in the same year.

Day's impressive victory run over the past 10 months includes his first major title at last August's PGA Championship, the Barclays and BMW Championship in last year's US PGA playoffs and this year's World Golf Championships Match Play.

Day, who stretched his margin over second-ranked Jordan Spieth after the American missed the cut, has top-10 finishes in the past four majors and will try to add to his major win total by dethroning Spieth in next month's US Open at Oakmont.

"I'm very motivated to stay at number one," Day said. "This definitely gives me that extension on the gap between one and two and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the year."

The victory made Day the third reigning world number one to capture the Players, joining Woods and Greg Norman, and the fourth Aussie to win the event after Norman, Adam Scott and Steve Elkington.

- Caddie: Day like F1 racer -

Day's caddie for a decade, Colin Swatton, said his man battled his instincts down the stretch to claim the victory.

"All day it was just stay patient, pick your moments and let the course come to us. He's like a Formula One (guy). He wants to have the hammer down all the time. It's hard at times for him not to hit the driver. It showed a lot of confidence, patience and trust."

Day's four-shot lead when the round began was halved as he made the turn, at which point he was the only player not to have a broken par on any hole in the last round.

The Aussie stumbled to 12-under while Thomas birdied three of the final five holes to shoot 65 and reach the clubhouse on 10-under with five rivals on 9-under as Day's back nine loomed.

Day answered the challenge by sinking 17-foot birdie putts at the 10th and 12th holes to reach 14-under -- four shots ahead of Duke, Knost, Kuchar, Molinari and Thomas.

Day sank a four-foot birdie putt at 16, parred the tricky par-3 17th with its island green and parred the 72nd hole to claim victory.

Third-ranked Rory McIlroy shot 70 to share 12th on 281.

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Day moves three ahead at weather-hit Sawgrass

Jason Day extended his overnight lead to three shots after 14 holes in the Players Championship second round on Friday before play was suspended for the day in fading light at the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

The Australian world number one again took advantage of a receptive Stadium Course with very little rough and barely a breath of wind, recording birdies at the second, fourth, seventh, 13th and 14th to get to get to 14 under overall.

That put him three ahead of Ireland's Shane Lowry, who was the leader in the clubhouse at 11-under 133 after shooting a 68 that included an albatross two at the par-four 18th, where he holed out with a wedge from 120 yards in the fairway.

"It's not fun stopping and starting," Day told Golf Channel after his round was disrupted for just over two hours due to the threat of lightning when he had completed just eight holes.

"I came back out not as sharp as I was this morning."

Out in three-under 33, Day picked up further shots at the par-three 13th, where he drained a 40-foot putt, and at the par-four 14th, where his approach settled within three feet of the cup, to strengthen his grip at the top.

"I feel good about my game but the biggest thing for me is to focus on trying to extend the lead," said the 28-year-old, who has long coveted a first Players title to add to his already impressive golfing resume.

"The moment that I lose a little bit of focus and make a few mental errors and mistakes, that's when I let the field back in."

Jonas Blixt of Sweden (67), Germany's Alex Cejka (67) and American Cameron Tringale (69) were at 10 under while American Colt Knost and Rory McIlroy made the biggest moves of the day to finish at nine and eight under respectively.

Just 24 hours after Day became the fifth player to fire a record-low 63 at the event widely regarded as the most prestigious outside the four majors, American Knost followed suit with a 10-birdie display.

Knost had a chance to card a 62 and make history, but three-putted from long range on his final hole, the par-four 18th, for his only bogey.

Soon after, McIlroy was in good position to at least match Knost with a 63 as he teed off on his last hole, the par-five ninth, at nine under for the day but he wound up with a bogey to settle for a 64.

"I don't feel like I played that much differently today than I did yesterday but it's an eight-shot difference," McIlroy said. "I'm in a good position even though I finished a little bit frustratingly, but these things happen."

The cut was projected to fall at two-under 142 with defending champion Rickie Fowler (71) and world number two Jordan Spieth, also at one under after 14 holes, likely to miss out.

The second round will be completed on Saturday morning local time, with the third round to follow soon afterwards. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Andrew Both)

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