Even with move to March, THE PLAYERS Championship still plays no favorites

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Charles Howell III (69, 5 under) said he knew he was in the minority, but, “I’m a May guy.” Justin Thomas (70, also 5 under) declared himself a May guy even before the tournament began. They tied for 35th.

Rory McIlroy is a March guy. Jim Furyk, too. They were 1-2, respectively, at THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass, which returned to March for the first time since 2006. Did they play well because they’re March guys, or are they March guys because they played well? Maybe both. Or maybe, as McIlroy kept saying all week, attitude was everything.

“I’m very thankful to the PGA TOUR for putting it back to March,” said McIlroy (70, 16 under).

To butcher an old saying, whether you thought you were a March guy or not a March guy at this PLAYERS, you were right. Because Furyk (67, 15 under), too, decided the date helped him.

“A long, wide-open golf course is going to be difficult for me to compete on,” Furyk said. “Not that I can't, but my opportunities and my percentage goes way down. But you put a golf course like this where it's really important to hit fairways -- I'm sure I was in the top five in fairways hit this week. It's about position.”

(Furyk was indeed T3 in fairways, 44-of-56, for the week.)

But it wasn’t just the top two finishers who suggested THE PLAYERS still plays no favorites.

Dustin Johnson (69, T5), who plays like McIlroy, had his first top 10 here. Brian Harman (70, T8), who plays a precision game more of the style of Furyk, matched his career best (2015).

“It definitely -- 80 degrees on Friday and really cold today, definitely more variables,” said 2018 PLAYERS champion Webb Simpson (68, T16). “The golf course played firm, but the rain came in and softened it out a little bit. It's definitely more of a guessing game in March.”

For some who had struggled in May, there was no guessing about the move to March. The date change allowed them to clear the cache, as it were. You could clearly hear Johnson’s enthusiasm even after he won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship last month.

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“I can’t wait,” he said of the new PLAYERS. His T5 was his best result in 11 starts here.

Why was McIlroy thankful for the new date? It starts with something Justin Rose (68, 12 under, T8) mentioned early in the week: The look of the newly overseeded course, specifically the two distinct greens, darker in the rough, lighter in the fairway. The course fit his eye better.

“The fairways and the rough are defined,” McIlroy said. “Where back in May, the fairway and the rough were the same color, so you didn't have definition in terms of where you were hitting your tee shots, and I definitely drove it better this week on this golf course because of that.”

The other benefit, he added, also came down to grass.

“You get into this Bermuda in May, it takes a lot of skill out of it,” McIlroy said. “It's sort of hit-and-hope and you have to be lucky and you're guessing half the time, where the way the overseed is around the greens now, you can actually showcase some of your skills and you can play shots pretty certain knowing what it's going to do, how it's going to react.”

Case in point: After his 347-yard tee shot wound up in the rough fractionally right of the 16th fairway, McIlroy lofted his second shot 174 yards to the green, his ball settling 19 feet left of the pin to set up an easy two-putt birdie. The winning margin, as it turned out.

McIlroy won despite being 60th in Strokes Gained: Putting (-1.506) in the final round, by far his worst performance on the greens all week (32 putts). He was 45th in SG: Putting for the week (+.663), meaning he helped himself only marginally on the greens.

He led the field, though, in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, and was second in SG: Off-the-Tee. And he tied for fourth in driving distance (295.8 yards per pop).

He maximized his strengths.

Conversely, Furyk excelled by playing his usual precision game. He usually left himself on the short grass off the tee, and by playing from the fairway he helped further bolster his precision iron play as he finished 10th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+4.788).

And using his relatively new arm-lock grip, he ranked 15th in SG: Putting (+4.201).

“I made my fair share of 15-footers this week,” he said.

THE PLAYERS in March helped long hitters and short hitters, but it also hurt long hitters and short hitters if they weren’t on their games. It simply demanded total commitment to and execution of one’s strengths, just as it always has. And the X-factor, as always, was attitude.