Rory McIlroy won the Players Championship after a firing a final round 70 at TPC Sawgrass to win by a single shot from Jim Furyk.
The 29-year-old from Northern Ireland finished on 16 under par in Florida to secure golf’s unofficial ‘fifth major’. It is his first win in a year and sets him up for an attempt at the career Grand Slam at the Masters next month.
McIlroy used a full bag of TaylorMade equipment to secure the win, including a M5 driver and M5 fairway wood, a mixture of P790, P750 and P730 irons, Milled Grind wedges, a Spider X putter and TaylorMade’s TP5 golf ball. He averaged 305 yards off the tee with the driver – fifth longest in the field – and carded 21 birdies over the four rounds.
“I feel like I’m playing some of the best golf of my life right now and I just need to keep doing the same things,” said McIlroy, who has finished in the top six in all the tournaments he has played in 2019. “If I hadn’t won, I’d have said I didn’t need one going into Augusta, but it’s nice to win on a course that will play similar to Augusta in a few weeks.”
Eddie Pepperell finished tied third after a superb closing 66, which included seven birdies in the final 11 holes. The Englishman holed a 50-foot birdie putt on the par-three 17th to briefly join McIlroy in a tie for the lead, before the four-time major champion pulled clear with birdies on the 15th and 16th. Overnight leader Jon Rahm fell away in the closing stages and finished on 11 under after a four-over 76, while Tommy Fleetwood struggled to a closing 73.