Players Championship 2017 cut line: Rory McIlroy makes cut despite bad back

Rory McIlroy will have his balky back tested on Monday following this week’s Players Championship, but in the meantime the newly married, four-time major champion appears to be safely in the mix come the weekend at TPC Sawgrass.

“I’ve been struggling with it a bit this week, sort of felt it for the first time on Sunday,” McIlroy told reporters after Friday’s second round, according to GolfDigest. ”Then I’ve just sort of been managing it since.

“So it’s okay, it’s manageable, it’s not, obviously not a hundred percent, but it’s good enough to get myself around here for the next couple of days,” McIlroy added. “I’m going for a MRI scan on Monday just to make sure it’s not serious and then I’ll see what we do from there.”

Where he goes from here is a tee time on Saturday after posting a 1-under 71 on Friday to go with Thursday’s 73 heading into the third round at even-par — two shots north of the projected cut line and just seven shots behind Friday’s mid-afternoon co-leaders, Louis Oosthuizen and Kyle Stanley. Not too bad for someone with new clubs, ball, and an injury in the same area as the fractured rib that sidelined him for some two months earlier in the season.

“If that injury was an eight or a nine in terms of pain and soreness and stiffness, this is around a four or five,” said McIlroy. “It might just be a flare-up of what happened previously and I just need to rest for a few days and it might be okay. Hopefully that’s what it shows in the scan next week.”

Not so fortunate was Bubba Watson, who, at 7-over, will miss his fourth cut in 10 events in 2017. That’s what a 76-75 (including a triple bogey-7 on the 18th hole following a water ball and a double on the par-3 17th) will do for a player at The Players.

And as big names (including defending champ Jason Day, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Rickie Fowler) appear safe, as does 54-year-old Vijay Singh (5-under for the week after 10 holes on Friday), Jordan Spieth (2-over for the week through seven holes in the second round) has work to do if he wants a Saturday tee time.

About that Spieth bunker incident on Thursday — Golf Channel’s Tim Rosaforte reported that it was Cody Gribble who left the sand in the green side bunker on No. 10 in such disarray that an angry Spieth took a photo of it with his phone.

“It was just a bunker that was raked to where it just kind of looked like somebody didn’t really care much to do it, or were rushing off the green, because I was, I think, in worse than a plugged lie when it had just trickled into [the bunker],” Spieth said after Thursday’s opening round. “Guys are very good 99.9 percent of the time, and that was very frustrating because I knew where I was, from a normal lie, that it wasn’t too bad. And from that lie, I had no chance.”

And then there’s third-year professional, Zac Blair, who was 2-under for the day heading to the treacherous par-3 17th, his eighth hole of the second round. Nine (9!) shots (including three — 3! — in the drink) later, Blair’s week was done.

Blair and his two playing partners, Blayne Barber and Tyrone Van Aswegen, had the dubious distinction of putting all three tee shots into the water at 17.

Here’s your leaderboard with the afternoon wave now getting into their back nine. The cut line looks pretty steady at 1-over right now: