World No. 3 Rory McIlroy surged into contention for his first win of the year in the Players Championship, despite squandering a wonderful chance to create tournament history.
McIlroy carded seven birdies and an eagle in his first 16 holes at Sawgrass and came to the par-five ninth, his final hole, needing a birdie to set a new course record of 62.
However, faced with a second shot from 271 yards, the four-time major winner surprisingly opted to lay up and then missed the green from 90 yards with his approach, before fluffing a chip and running up his only bogey of the day.
The resulting 64 left McIlroy on eight under par and two shots behind clubhouse leaders Jonas Blixt and Alex Cejka, who had both recorded their second successive rounds of 67.
American Colt Knost was a shot behind after earlier also missing out on the course record, the world No184 shooting 63 after three-putting the 18th from 40 feet. McIlroy felt he had got the worst of the weather as one of the late starters on Thursday and was pleased to take advantage of better conditions on Friday morning.
“It was benign, soft greens and the back nine you could not get it any easier, so to take advantage of that was really nice,” said McIlroy, who is now a combined 44 under par for the back nine and 12 over for the front since 2013.
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— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 13, 2016
-7 thru 7. https://t.co/UdeiiAlDzI
“I was going well and it would have been nice to make a four on the last, but 64 is still a great score.”
The spectacular scoring continued as American Will Wilcox made the first hole-in-one on the 17th since 2002 and Shane Lowry bounced back from a poor start with the sixth eagle in tournament history on the 18th.
Lowry, who was two off the lead after an opening 65, had bogeyed the 14th and birdied the 16th before dumping his tee shot into the water on the 17th, but then holed out from 120 yards on the last to get back to eight under par.
