PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The walk from the ninth green to the scoring area at the Stadium Course was a long, somber, angst-filled stroll for Rory McIlroy on Friday afternoon.
Fans chanted his name along the ropes and screamed encouragement, the golfer oblivious to all the commotion.
McIlroy kept his head down, determined to get to where he was going, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere else and exuding a less-than-happy vibe.
He had just shot 64.
His body language suggested 74. Maybe 84.
"Disappointment; I'm frustrated," McIlroy said despite jumping 71 places on the leaderboard by the end of the day and shooting his best score ever at the Players Championship.
"It should have been a couple better. Instead of being 2 behind the lead, I feel like I should be tied for the lead."
Of course, everyone says that, right?
Golfers always feel they leave a few out there, the perfect round elusive.
But in this case, McIlroy is probably correct, based on the way the round ended and what could have -- should have -- been.
After playing near-flawless golf for 17 holes, McIlroy botched the par-5 ninth -- his 18th -- in an inexplicable way, needing 4 shots to get in the hole from just 90 yards, a possible course-record-setting birdie turning into a scrambling bogey that had McIlroy steaming.
"You know that a few guys have shot 63 here; it would have been nice to shoot 62," said McIlroy, 27, who is ranked third in the world and trails leader Jason Day by 6 shots when play was halted Friday night due to darkness after a weather delay. "And I knew that playing the last, so that was really the dilemma: What's the best way, best chance for me to make birdie here?"
Standing on the ninth tee, McIlroy had made an eagle and seven birdies. He had tied the back-nine record of 29 and was staring down a 62 that had never been shot on this course. At the very least, he figured to tie the mark attained by Greg Norman, Fred Couples, Martin Kaymer and Roberto Castro, plus two golfers this year: Colt Knost earlier in the day and Jason Day in the first round.
But, after a 294-yard tee shot, McIlroy was unsure about going for the green from 271 yards -- even though that shot, for him, was reasonable to pull off or at least get near the green.
"Any time I've went for the ninth green in two here, I've either hit the trees in the left or I've hit it sort of out to the right into those grass mounds that [course designer] Pete Dye loves," McIlroy said. "And it's just never really worked out for me when I went for the green.
"So I sort of talked myself out of it on the fairway. And I laid up and thought I'll take my chances from inside 100 yards. And it was tough. If anything, I might have left myself a little bit too close."
Instead of sticking a wedge shot close to the hole or even on the green, McIlroy came up short of the putting surface on a slope just over the bunker. From there, he hit a poor chip onto the fringe and had 21 feet left for par. He missed, and just like that he had a bogey 6.
It is hard to find much fault with a guy who just shot 64, but if there has been an issue in McIlroy's game this year, it has been his wedge play. He came into the tournament 170th on the PGA Tour in proximity to the hole from 100 to 125 yards.
A day earlier, McIlroy had lamented his lack of distance control on the shots that do not require a full swing, and it caught up with him on Friday.
"It was a tough shot with it being downwind and the pin so tight," he said. "I was just trying to get really sort of cute with it, I guess, and I just hit it too easy."
McIlroy second-guessed his own decision to not go for the green in two, but explained that he put a 2-iron in his bag and took out a 5-wood, a club more likely to give him a chance to reach that green from 270 yards.
"At least I could have got a little more height," he said. "But yeah, I was thinking about it. I wanted to make birdie and shoot 62. There's no doubt about that."
At least McIlroy shot a low score and got back into the tournament.
TPC Sawgrass has always been a bit perplexing to him. In his first three tries, he missed the cut. The first time he shot in the 60s was a 66 in the opening round in 2013, the first of three straight years he finished in the top 10. Yet Friday's 64 was still just his fifth time in the 60s in 20 rounds.
And the disparity from the front nine to the back nine is also striking. With a 35 on the front side Friday, McIlroy has played the first nine holes in a combined 12 over par. But with his 29, he has played the second nine holes in a combined 44 under par.
"I knew the course was going to play much easier than it did yesterday afternoon," said McIlroy, who shot 72 in the first round. "This course really does play so much differently from morning to afternoon. You can almost feel it as the day goes on, as your round progresses in the morning.
"I felt the greens getting a bit firmer, the wind gets up a little bit, so you have to take advantage of your tee time in the morning."
And he did. McIlroy was 7 under through seven holes after holing a 50-foot putt from off the green at the 16th for an eagle. After a birdie at the par-5 second, he was 8 under par. McIlroy lipped out for another birdie at the sixth, but got another at the seventh and was all set to make history with nothing but a rather easy par-5 to negotiate.
That didn't go so well, leaving the Northern Irishman in a dour mood.
Perhaps it brightened as time passed. Afternoon play was delayed by weather, meaning the possibility of a Saturday morning completion of the third round. At least McIlroy won't have to deal with that.
And he is likely to be within a handful of shots of the lead, something he has rarely been able to say at this stage of the tournament.
But of course, it could have been better. Golfers always think that way.