Few have the experience of playing the Stadium Course as McIlroy and certainly not three of the players directly ahead of him on the leaderboard.

There is a phrase used in the PGA Tour’s Shotlink system that we’ve rarely noticed: “tree outline.” Maybe it’s more prominent in the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass because there are several nurseries worth of trees here,

Rory McIlroy continues to sit on the front page of the leaderboard, but TPC Sawgrass still finds ways to put its claws into him at The PLAYERS Championship.