J.J. Spaun lost his ball. 

Playing TPC Sawgrass’ famed island-green 17th Monday, he couldn’t see it after its descent. He’d flushed his 8-iron on the 130-yard par-3 during the second of three playoff holes with Rory McIlroy to decide the Players Championship. It was needed. On overtime’s first hole, on the par-5 16th, Spaun parred, while McIlroy birdied to take a one-stroke lead. But Spaun’s response looked promising. Seconds earlier, McIlroy found the green and was about 30 feet away, but Spaun’s ball was tracking toward a spot that would land, then spin back toward the cup.  

If you were watching on the grounds, or viewing on Golf Channel, you saw it didn’t. But Spaun was bewildered. 

“Where is it?” he said. 

He was seemingly told. He seemingly didn’t believe it. 

“Where?”

Wet. Over the green. Into the water. Sunk. Like his hopes for a breakthrough win. 

From there, Spaun hit onto the green from the drop zone with his third shot, needed a chip shot on the green due to a funky lie and two-putted for a triple-bogey six, while McIlroy bogeyed, giving him a three-shot playoff cushion going into the 18th hole.

There, McIlroy bogeyed again, Spaun picked up and McIlroy won his second Players and his second tournament this year. 

“A nightmare at 17,” analyst Brad Faxon said on the Golf Channel broadcast. 

Stay with GOLF.com for more on this story. 

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