J.J. Spaun explains club choice on deciding hole of 2025 Players

• J.J. Spaun lost the 2025 Players Championship to Rory McIlroy in a playoff.
• The playoff came down to the par-3 17th hole, where Spaun hit his tee shot into the water.

One swing decided the 2025 Players Championship.

J.J. Spaun, who lost in a three-hole aggregate playoff to Rory McIlroy on Monday morning at TPC Sawgrass’ Stadium Course, spent time before the playoff practicing on the range with his TrackMan to dial in his numbers for the tee shot on the par-3 17th. It’s the famous island green where dreams have been realized but others have gone to die. The importance of the shot, in this championship, can’t be overstated.

McIlroy hit a flighted 9-iron and landed softly on the back of the green. Spaun, who parred the first hole and trailed the world No. 2 by a stroke, pulled out a 8-iron on the tee. He made his swing, and he was worried it was short.

It flew the green, landing in the water. At that moment, the result was all but final.

“I was never thinking anything other than 8-iron,” Spaun explained after the playoff concluded. “It was just kind of like a nice chip 8-iron. Pulled an 8-iron, and even after Rory hit 9, he’s easily a club longer than me. I don’t know if I flighted it too well, but it just went through the wind. I couldn’t even tell where it was going to be. I didn’t know what to tell it, like sit, go. If anything I was leaning more toward go.

“But it was a great shot. It was probably six, seven feet left of the pin, just perfect if it was the right distance. I couldn’t believe it was long. It just wasn’t my luck of the gust, I guess.”

Spaun proceeded to triple the hole, and even after McIlroy three-putted for bogey, the Northern Irishman took a three-shot advantage to the final hole, and Spaun could only hope for a mistake that wasn’t going to come.

Sunday afternoon, Spaun had a birdie putt on the 72nd hole that stopped a couple revolutions short of dropping, which would’ve been a life-changing victory. Instead, he returned Monday morning, admitted the nerves hit him standing on the 16th tee, and the day belonged to McIlroy.

“It just felt like a never-ending week, honestly,” Spaun said. “I was hoping to get home last night to see my wife and kids. Even before the delay and all that happened, I had a flight ready to go. I didn’t feel nervous. I felt really good last night. I slept better than I did Saturday night. Slept better than I did Friday night.

“But then when I got to the tee, I was like, ‘ooh,’ it kind of hit me.

“I don’t know what the difference was. Maybe because I knew it’s do or die maybe. But yeah, I think it was my first Tour playoff, so nothing but positives to take from it.”

Spaun isn’t going home empty handed. He will take home $2,725,000, a larger prize than when he won the Valero Texas Open in 2022. He will also move to 25th in the world, which secures his spot in the field for the 2025 Masters, where he’ll make his second appearance.

But the shot on 17 is likely one he’ll think about for some time.

“I never thought it was long,” Spaun said. “I never thought it was long. For some reason, like I had no doubt in my mind that that was going to be long. Just based off what we were doing on the range.

“I was hitting a couple of them 110 yards into the same wind direction. I don’t know if adrenaline — I know to expect something like that, but the window I hit it at especially, it was a lot higher than actually the window I was trying to hit it so that’s what made me think it was floating and staying in the air and possibly short.

“From the angle I was on, it looked like it was going to land just right on that little spine and spin back to a foot, honestly. Just went through the wind.”