PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Corey Conners is Canadian through and through. But there’s just something about Florida, and its golf courses, that agree with him — certainly over the last two weeks.
And now Conners heads into a deserved week off after two incredible results at some of the biggest events of the early part of the PGA Tour season.
The Canadian, who shot a final-round 1-under 71 at TPC Sawgrass, finished tied for sixth at The Players Championship — his best-ever result at the event. This comes after he finished solo third last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill outside Orlando.
“Residing here in Florida now, it feels like a home game and definitely very comfortable – but Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass are also two of my favourite golf courses,” Conners told Sportsnet.
Rory McIlroy – who played with Conners on Sunday – and J.J. Spaun finished at 12 under and will play a three-hole aggregate best-score-wins playoff on Monday, teeing off at 9 a.m. ET. They will play hole Nos. 16-18.
Tee times were moved up through the morning Sunday with weather hitting Northeast Florida in the afternoon. They managed to get the whole of the final round in before dark — despite a four-hour delay, from 1:15 to 5:15 p.m. — but in the end, McIlroy and Spaun were tied and they ran out of daylight.
Conners finished three back of the playoff-bound duo at 9 under.
Conners was steady, if unspectacular, through his first 11 holes. He bogeyed the par-4 4th and got it back with a birdie on the par-5 11th. He hit it into the trees on No. 12 before the horn blew but came out of the break settled and sorted, adding two more birdies on his back nine. It was Conners’ third 71 of the week to go along with his round-of-the-day effort on Saturday, a 6-under 66.
“My week was solid overall. There’s lots of positives I can take away from my performance here – I was close,” Conners said. “Didn’t quite have my best stuff today, and it would have been nice to have a few opportunities early in the round and get on a run, but a lot of positives and feeling really solid about my game.”
It was a tough day for Conners’ putter to go ice cold, as he missed a 15-footer for birdie on 3, a 10-footer for birdie on 5, an eight-footer on 7 and a nine-footer on 10. He also missed a 14-foot par attempt on No. 4.
Alas, Conners still gained nearly three strokes on the field for the week overall with the putter, and, coupled with his always-great ball striking, he’s thrilled with how things are going with a new centre-shafted prototype model putter he’s put in the bag recently.
“It reaffirms my switch in the putter,” Conners said.
Conners continues to prove he belongs when it comes to the biggest events on the PGA Tour schedule as last week was a Signature Event, and this week has been long marketed as the PGA Tour’s crown jewel.
He told Sportsnet his confidence was tipped even higher after these last two weeks.
“Always a pretty confident guy but I think my confidence is pretty high. I feel like I can rely on all parts of my game to be steady, and I hit a lot of great shots off the tee, lot of good iron shots, and a lot of good wedges and made a lot of nice putts (this week) so overall feeling pretty solid,” Conners said. “Always room for improvement but definitely confident with my game.”
In order to pick off a big championship, however, he’ll have to beat the likes of McIlroy, currently ranked No. 2 in the world. Conners was quick to heap praise on McIlroy, who won The Players in 2019.
“He can overpower a golf course, but he’s got great touch as well. He did a lot of great things. He got near the lead early in the round and hung around there most of the day. He had a few chances that weren’t able to fall, but he was really solid – and a great guy to play with,” Conners said.
McIlroy certainly had his chances to pull away from the field after the restart but missed a few key putts down the stretch. He started beautifully, though – despite being four shots back of the lead after 54 holes – going birdie-eagle on his first two holes. He bogeyed Nos. 7 and 14 and after the back-nine bogey he couldn’t convert any birdie try for his final four holes, despite No. 16 being ranked as the easiest hole on the golf course.
Still, this is another week where McIlroy, a winner already this season on the PGA Tour, has a solid chance to lift a big trophy. He knows that it will be a fairly straightforward match-play situation Monday morning and isn’t planning on overcomplicating anything.
“I think it's important to hit the 16th fairway and get off to a good start there and then just go from there. You've got to make five good swings. That's all it is,” McIlroy said. “So, try to get up there, make five good swings tomorrow morning and get this thing done.”
Spaun, meanwhile, thinks all the pressure is on his playing partner.
“I mean, everyone expects him to win. I don't think a lot of people expect me to win,” Spaun said. “I expect myself to win. That's all I care about.”
Akshay Bhatia, Lucas Glover, and Tom Hoge – whose final-round 66 tied for the low round of the day – finished tied for third, two shots back of the 12-under playoff number.
Hoge played with Canadian Taylor Pendrith Sunday, the only other Canadian to find the weekend.
Pendrith struggled to a 3-over 75 Sunday to finish tied for 38th but told Sportsnet there were a handful of good things that he saw out of his game this week. He had been struggling with the putter through the season but this week at TPC Sawgrass was far and away his best of 2025. Pendrith was 171st in strokes gained: putting on the season, but this week, he ended up 6th in that statistic.
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