J.J. Spaun says everyone expects Rory McIlroy to win Players playoff

• J.J. Spaun and Rory McIlroy will face off in a three-hole playoff on Monday after tying for the lead at the Players Championship.
• The playoff will take place on the challenging final three holes at TPC Sawgrass, known as “The Gauntlet.”

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Lee Trevino returned to the Players Championship this week on the 45^th anniversary of winning the title and proclaimed that it was time for golf’s proverbial “fifth major” to be given official status. The six-time major winner already was bumping his tally of majors to seven. 

Trevino knows what it is all about to handle major championship pressure. Back in 1971 at the U.S. Open at Merion, Trevino was involved in a famous sudden-death playoff after he tied with Jack Nicklaus. Trevino had already won one of his majors but he pitted himself as the underdog, David against Goliath, and said he had nothing to lose.

On Sunday at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, J.J. Spaun adopted Trevino’s mantra after his 30-foot birdie putt for the win stopped in the jaws a roll short from going in for the biggest title of his life. When PGA Tour Radio’s Fred Albers told him that he thought he had made it, Spaun answered, “So did I. It hit Velcro at the end.”

It set up a Monday three-hole aggregate playoff with world No. 2 Rory McIlroy, a four-time major winner and past champion of the Players in 2019 who is seeking his 28th Tour title. 

“I’m standing here feeling like I probably should be going home with the trophy tonight,” he said. “But that’s fine, I’ll reset and hopefully go home with a trophy tomorrow morning.”

Golf Channel’s Paul McGinley understood why McIlroy expressed disappointment. “He did the hard work, he got himself in position, and then he flatlined,” McGinley said on “Live From.” McIlroy rallied from four strokes back with a birdie-eagle start to announce his presence in the trophy hunt. After birdies at No. 11, which he sank before play was suspended due to weather for four hours, and a birdie fresh out of the gates at No. 12, McIlroy built a three-stroke lead with six holes to go when Spaun proceeded to take three putts at 12.

But McIlroy made bogey at 14 and Spaun followed with birdies at No. 14, where he stuck his approach to a foot and another tap-in birdie at 16. McIlroy seemed to go into a prevent defense much as he had at the U.S. Open last June when he blew a late lead to Bryson DeChambeau. This time, McIlroy’s par putt from just inside 5 feet at the home hole snuck in and he shook his head knowing that he would face endless questions about his failure to close out another chance for victory.

And so we’ve got a mismatch of resumes for a three-hole playoff that will take place at 9 a.m. ET at “The Gauntlet,” three of the most exciting and water-laden finishing stretches in all of golf. McIlroy’s made his job for Monday sound simple: “You’ve got to make five good swings. That’s all it is,” he said. “So try to get up there, make five good swings tomorrow morning and get this thing done.”

All those years ago, Trevino told the press, “You guys already have your headlines written: Nicklaus defeats Trevino to win the Open. But we played 72 holes, and we both shot 280, so I think my chances are very good. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain,” Trevino said at the time. “If he beats me, he’s supposed to. Ah, but what if he loses? Then I’m the hero.”

Spaun played 72 holes and he and McIlroy both shot 12-under 276. Spaun, with just one victory to his credit, has adopted Trevino’s approach. All the pressure is on McIlroy, who is expected to win against an unlikely competitor in Spaun, who didn’t even know there was a three-hole playoff at the Players. It couldn’t be played in the fading light and so Spaun has a chance to strategize and map out a game plan to sling a stone at the heavily-favored McIlroy. He has everything to lose and nothing to gain. If he beats Spaun, he’s supposed. But as Trevino so elegantly put it, what if McIlroy loses? Then Spaun is the hero (and $4.5 million richer.)

How does Spaun like his chances? “Everyone expects him to win. I don’t think a lot of people expect me to win. I expect myself to win,” he said. “That’s all I care about.”

Spoken just like Trevino, one of the great underdog stories ever to come along in golf.