Rory McIlroy invoked the spirit of the late, great Seve Ballesteros to hit a magical shot on the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass and fire his way into contention after the opening round of The Players Championship.
After an errant tee shot on the final hole that left him under the trees and in the pine straw right of the fairway with 161 yards to the pin, McIlroy produced his shot of the day, pulling out a 5-iron and playing a low stinger that rolled nearly the entire way up to the green, ending up seven-feet from the hole.
The World No.2 would sink the putt for a five-under 67 in his first round, leaving him one shot off early leaders Lucas Glover, J.J. Spaun and Camilo Villegas, all of whom began their tournaments with 66s.
“That was cool. A little five-iron chip-and-run,” beamed McIlroy.
“I’m just trying to get it up around the front of the green, the fact that it got up to six- or seven-feet is a bonus. Pretty cool shot and a pretty nice way to finish the round.”
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It was a wild round for McIlroy otherwise as he hit only four fairways at TPC Sawgrass but, despite his errancy off the tee, managed to scramble his way around to seven birdies and two bogeys to put himself right in the mix after day one.
The crux of his round came around the turn when the Holywood man strung together four consecutive birdies starting at the par-five ninth, rolling in a 15-footer after leaving himself just shy of the green in two to kick things off.
From there, a fine approach saw him kick off the back nine with a seven-foot birdie putt on the 10th and the putter stayed hot on the next two holes as putts from 11- and 12-feet respectively yielded birdies at the par-five 11th and par-four 12th.
By that stage McIlroy was level-par as a hot start that saw him birdie his opening two holes were mitigated by bogeys at the par-three third, after flying the green with his tee shot, and the par-four seventh having missed a six-foot par putt when he missed the green well to the left.
But his quick start to the back nine got him up to four-under-par, although his momentum stalled as three straight pars was followed by a missed opportunity for a birdie at the short par-five 16th after a wild pulled drive left and then a missed nine-foot birdie putt at the famous par-three 17th.
However, just when it looked like McIlroy was going to struggle just to make par on the 18th let alone birdie, he came up with his moment of magic to move one shot off the lead with a fine 67.
“I’ve been trying to hit more of a cut because if you miss right here, most of the time you’re going to be okay. Didn’t do it very well but any time I missed a fairway I always had a gap or a shot or I could do something with it,” added McIlroy.
“I’m not going to be able to ride my luck like that for the rest of the week so I’m going to go hit some balls and figure it out.”