World No. 2 McIlroy Chase... 5.98→4.00

Winning Points at The Players Championship
Narrowing the Gap with No. 1 Scheffler, Spaun Rises to 25th
Im Sungjae 23rd, Kim Joohyung 28th, An Byeonghun 34th

'Number 2' Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland) has launched a chase for the world No. 1 ranking.

Lori McIlroy is celebrating with the trophy immediately after winning The Players Championship. Ponte Vedra Beach=AFP·Yonhap News

In the men's golf weekly world rankings announced on the 17th (local time), he scored 9.8612 points, maintaining his 2nd place position. Most notably, he narrowed the gap with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (USA, 13.8625 points). The difference decreased from 5.9775 points last week to 4.0013 points this week.

On the same day, McIlroy defeated J.J. Spaun (USA) in a three-hole aggregate score playoff at the PGA Tour's 5th major, The Players Championship (total prize money $25 million), held at TPC Sawgrass (par 72) in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. This marks his second win of the season and 28th career victory, coming one month after his win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the 2nd of last month. The winner's prize money was $4.5 million (approximately 6.5 billion KRW).

Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa (both USA), Ludvig ?berg (Sweden), Hideki Matsuyama (Japan), and Russell Henley (USA) maintained their 4th to 7th positions. The runner-up of The Players Championship, J.J. Spaun (USA), jumped an impressive 57 places to 25th. South Korea's Im Sung-jae is ranked 23rd, Kim Joo-hyung 28th, and An Byeong-hun 34th. Kim Si-woo, who tied for 38th at The Players Championship, rose two places to 64th.