{"id":825102,"date":"2026-03-14T11:01:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T11:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/825102\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T11:01:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T11:01:24","slug":"schauffele-sets-players-pace-as-mcilroy-faces-cut-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/825102\/","title":{"rendered":"Schauffele sets Players pace as McIlroy faces cut wait"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rory McIlroy is hoping a birdie on the last hole of his second round will be enough for him to make the halfway cut at the Players Championship.<\/p>\n<p>The defending champion, who was among the early starters on Friday, signed for a one-under-par 71 to improve to one over for the tournament &#8211; which is right on the projected cut mark, with the top 65 plus ties playing the final two rounds.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>McIlroy, who said he was feeling &#8220;rusty&#8221; in round one after several days without hitting a ball as he recovered from a back injury, said he &#8220;hit the ball better&#8221; in round two.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I played well enough to be up the leaderboard, I just couldn&#8217;t get a putt to drop,&#8221; added the world number two, who missed seven birdie attempts from inside 20 feet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hopefully I&#8217;ve done enough to get into the weekend and have another two days at it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His playing partner Xander Schauffele set the clubhouse pace on 10 under with a scintillating round of 65 at TPC Sawgrass in Florida that featured eight birdies and one bogey.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The two-time major winner hit every fairway in a terrific display of ball-striking.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was attacking the golf course versus playing defensive,&#8221; said the American, who has twice finished runner-up at the PGA Tour&#8217;s flagship tournament.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s always easy to be aggressive from the fairway and take advantage of the greens being just a hair softer. But I think they&#8217;re slowly firming up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Schauffele leads by one from fellow American Cameron Young, who is on nine under after a 67.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian Corey Conners took just 30 shots for his first nine holes, including holing a 102-yard wedge for an eagle three on the ninth, as he also carded a 67 that lifted him to eight under.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Spieth also made positive moves up the leaderboard with a run of five successive birdies midway through his round.<\/p>\n<p>But he said his finish &#8220;stinks&#8221; after posting a double-bogey for second day running. He called golf a &#8220;weird game&#8221; after signing for a 68 that left him at three under.<\/p>\n<p>World number one Scottie Scheffler, who had an erratic level-par 72 in round one, is among the later starters, alongside England&#8217;s Tommy Fleetwood.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden&#8217;s Ludvig Aberg is also out on the course and he had three birdies and an eagle in his opening four holes to shoot up the leaderboard.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li\/><\/ul>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/.gif\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy is hoping a birdie on the last hole of his second round will be enough for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4106],"tags":[2826,14704,12829,79,16,15,43967],"class_list":["post-825102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-jordan-spieth","tag-mcilroy","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-xander-schauffele"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116227190816760601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}