{"id":519068,"date":"2026-03-12T12:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/519068\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:25:09","slug":"rory-mcilroy-doesnt-hit-more-than-6-iron-wednesday-hopeful-for-players-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/519068\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy doesn’t hit more than 6-iron Wednesday, hopeful for Players defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Rory McIlroy arrived at TPC Sawgrass at 2:20 p.m. ET, underwent about an hour of therapy in the posh locker room and didn\u2019t make it through a full bag of range balls on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

That, along with an afternoon stroll to chip and putt around the Stadium Course\u2019s back nine, will count as the sum total of his Players Championship on-site preparation as the world No. 2 has been sidelined with back spasms since last Saturday when he withdrew from last week\u2019s Arnold Palmer Invitational.<\/p>\n

McIlroy, the defending champion at this week\u2019s flagship event, remained at home in South Florida until Wednesday to rest and recover from the back spasms that occurred while he was warming up in the gym prior to Saturday\u2019s third round at Bay Hill.<\/p>\n

His range session at TPC Sawgrass was interrupted by an impromptu therapy session with his trainer, and the Northern Irishman only made it through the 6-iron in his bag before he met with the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better. It\u2019s better than it was. I hit up until a 6-iron on the range there and it felt OK. I\u2019ve got about, I don\u2019t know, is it 20 hours until I tee off, or until I\u2019m supposed to tee off tomorrow. So, yeah, we\u2019ll see,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI\u2019m taking it sort of hour by hour. But it feels better. That\u2019s all I can say. Like I couldn\u2019t stand to address the ball on Saturday morning on the range at Bay Hill, and it\u2019s obviously better than that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Justin-thoams-tommy-fleetwood-scottie-scheffler-split\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at tee times and groupings for the first round of The Players Championship as well as how weather could play a big factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, probably a game-time decision, but all indications are pointing in the right direction, so hopefully good night tonight. The drugs are working wonders, and then just keep it going from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy said he hadn\u2019t practiced since withdrawing from Bay Hill but he also said he wasn\u2019t feeling any pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t even call it pain; I would say just more like sensitivity,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not really on the site or like it\u2019s sort of more like the big \u2014 like even just hitting balls there for a little bit, just feel like my muscles around the area just getting a little bit fatigued.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy is scheduled to tee off for the first round at 1:42 p.m. ET and he was optimistic the extra rest would help the recovery. He also said there was no chance to make the injury any worse if he does play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Rory McIlroy arrived at TPC Sawgrass at 2:20 p.m. ET, underwent about an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-519068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}