“This is the third time I’ve won on St. Patrick’s Day,” said McIlroy, who won the 2019 Players on March 17 and the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 18. “It’s been a good luck charm for me.” After failing to close out a three-shot lead with five holes to play on Sunday and letting J.J. Spaun catch him and force a playoff, McIlroy didn’t make the same mistake on Monday. Five good shots. That’s all Rory McIlroy focused on when he went to bed on Sunday night with a Monday morning playoff looming. It turns out, three good shots and a couple of bogeys was all McIlroy needed to lift his second Players Championship trophy. It started with a 337-yard bomb down the fairway on 16 that set up a 175-yard iron into the green and an easy birdie to seize the lead and set the tone for the two-man showdown. “Honestly, standing over that tee shot on 16 this morning is the most nervous I’ve been in a long time,” McIlroy said. “So I think that will stand to me, feeling like that and being able to hit the golf shots that I need while your stomach is sort of not feeling great and your legs are a little shaky and your heart rate is racing. To have to go through that today, it’s nice to have that in recent memory for some of the tournaments coming up for sure.” Hitting the green into the wind on 17 then put all the pressure on Spaun. “I left here a little disappointed last night that I didn’t get it done in regulation. I reset, and I needed to go out and play some good golf today,” he said. “It started with a great drive on 16 which set me up for an easy birdie. Then a great swing into 17, and those three swings were basically what decided the championship.” Spaun had hung valiantly with McIlroy all week but didn’t have the answer this time. His 9-iron sailed over the back of the island green and marked his first water ball of the week. “It was a perfect club. I hit it, I guess, just too good,” Spaun said. “Kind of went right through the wind. … 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.” His subsequent three-putt triple left him three shots in the hole and all but ended the drama in front of big crowds that showed up on a Monday morning to bear witness. “Obviously no one works in Jacksonville,” McIlroy said. “I didn’t expect there to be so many people out there today. It created a great atmosphere.” With a three-shot lead heading to 18 tee, McIlroy didn’t take any chances with the water left and flared his tee shot right in the rough. Spaun did the same and both had to just chop back into the fairway and wedge it onto the par-4 green. McIlroy two-putted for bogey and Spaun never needed to finish. Even though it was only a three-hole playoff, McIlroy approached it like any other final round. “I got here just as early as I would get here for an 18-hole round and went through my full warm-up,” he said. “I was in the gym at 6:15 and went through my whole workout. I gave myself plenty of time and did all the things I had to do to get myself ready, and I went out there and hit the shots that I needed to in the end.” McIlroy is the eighth player to win multiple Players and the first European player to do so. He joins Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler as the only players to win multiple majors and Players. “I go back to 2009 when I first set eyes on this golf course, and it certainly wasn’t love at first sight,” McIlroy said. “I’ve had to learn to play this golf course and adapt my game to it in some ways. Yeah, to win for a second time is awesome.” Spaun, on the other hand, was trying to win only his second career PGA Tour event. He’s had three chances to do that this season, and the best results of his career have elevated him to No. 25 in the world. “It’s hard to not feel discouraged a little bit,” Spaun admitted. “But nothing but positives. Putting myself in contention and giving myself a chance to win in a playoff, if someone told me that would happen to start the week, I would totally take it. So, nothing but positives to take from it and hopefully I can just learn from this and get it done next time.”