{"id":534679,"date":"2026-03-13T23:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534679\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T23:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:12:14","slug":"rory-mcilroy-projected-to-make-cut-at-the-players-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/534679\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy projected to make cut at THE PLAYERS Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

3H AGO<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

3 Min Read<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Latest<\/p>\n

<\/a>*:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]>\"Rory<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy birdies final hole of Round 2 to move inside cut line at THE PLAYERS<\/p>\n

*:not(style)~*:not(style){margin-top:0.5rem;-webkit-margin-end:0px;margin-inline-end:0px;margin-bottom:0px;-webkit-margin-start:0px;margin-inline-start:0px;}]]><\/p>\n

A<\/p>\n

Change Text Size<\/p>\n

Written by Paul Hodowanic<\/p>\n

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Rory McIlroy couldn\u2019t buy a putt on Friday. Luckily, he didn\u2019t need only one on the final hole of his second round \u2013 he could survive with two to make the cut on the number.<\/p>\n

McIlroy two-putted from 31 feet on the par-5 ninth for a closing birdie to move from outside the projected cut line to on the number at 1 over at THE PLAYERS Championship. After an opening-round 74, McIlroy shot 1-under 71 on Friday as he continued to work off the mental and physical rust of his back injury. For that reason, McIlroy said it was important to make the weekend, even if he will enter the third round with a double-digit deficit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have sucked to be going home this afternoon,\u201d McIlroy said, \u201cso to hang around and hopefully play two more days, that’s a win.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy has had to lower his expectations of this title defense at TPC Sawgrass. He would\u2019ve loved to contend, and still has an outside chance to do so, but the biggest win was getting through two rounds healthy. That much was far from a sure thing 48 hours ago. McIlroy spent the early part of the week at his home in South Florida, receiving treatment for back spasms that caused him to withdraw before the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. He didn\u2019t step foot on TPC Sawgrass until Wednesday afternoon and only hit a few dozen balls, never hitting a club longer than a 6-iron.<\/p>\n

Despite that, McIlroy\u2019s long game has looked surprisingly sharp. The two-time winner of THE PLAYERS wasn\u2019t lacking any speed through 36 holes, ranking inside the top five in driving distance and inside the top 25 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. The issue has been the shorter clubs. On Thursday, it was McIlroy\u2019s chipping that suffered. On Friday, it was his putter. McIlroy didn\u2019t make a putt longer than 5 feet until the 18th hole, his ninth of the day. He made two putts longer than 5 feet all day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I played well enough today to be up the leaderboard,\u201d he said. \u201cI just couldn’t get a putt to drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the short-game struggles was injury-related. Those shots require more bending, which puts more strain on McIlroy\u2019s back. He\u2019s also had several downhill lies, further exasperating the issue. Rust also played a part, as McIlroy said he was surprised by how much rust he felt. Much of that wore off by the end of the day Friday, giving McIlroy some optimism for the weekend. Notably, McIlroy was relieved that a weekend here means his next start won\u2019t come until the Masters next month. Had he missed the cut, McIlroy would have looked to add one more event ahead of his other important title defense.<\/p>\n

*:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]>\"Rory<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy hits 192-yard approach to 18 feet, sets up birdie on No. 16 at THE PLAYERS<\/p>\n

\u201cBones (Mackay) asked me walking down the ninth hole there, my last hole, ‘What’s your plan after this for like the next few weeks?’, and I said, ‘Bones, I’ll tell you after this hole. There’s a lot riding on this golf hole,’\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n

Others weren\u2019t so fortunate. While McIlroy played his way onto the right side of the cutline, Ben Griffin (4 over) led the group of notables who played their way off of it. Griffin, 2 under to start the day, shot 78 and will miss the weekend. Shane Lowry (5 over), Joel Dahmen (6 over) and Tom Hoge (9 over) also missed the cut. Hoge had a particularly tough time on Friday, shooting 80. That included a nine on the par-4 seventh hole. Hoge hit it into the water off the tee, topped his next shot and then shanked his fourth shot en route to the quintuple bogey.<\/p>\n

*:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-11jnzpa>img,.css-11jnzpa>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-11jnzpa::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:66.66666666666666%;}]]>\"Image<\/p>\n

Mar 13, 2026<\/p>\n

McIlroy plays through back injury, shoots 74 at TPC Sawgrass<\/a>Latest<\/a>\"Image\"Image<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3H AGO 3 Min Read Latest *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Rory McIlroy birdies final hole of Round 2 to move inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-534679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}