TPC Sawgrass got the better of Rory McIlroy again.
The World No. 3 couldn't recover from an opening-round 76 to miss the cut at The Players Championship. His tournament ends at 5-over par after carding a 73 in Round 2.
McIlroy hasn't been able to tame the Pete Dye design since winning The Players in 2019. The tournament was canceled in 2020, but he missed the cut in 2021 and finished T33 in 2022.
The Northern Irishman was let down by multiple facets of his game, but perhaps none more so than his driving accuracy. McIlroy hit just 13 of 28 fairways (46.43%), which ranked 118th in the field.
He wasn't the only big name to miss the +2 cutline, though. 2022 U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick won't be playing the weekend after going 76-71. It's the second consecutive year that the Englishman missed the cut.
Kurt Kitayama, fresh off a victory at Bay Hill, and the red-hot Chris Kirk, who has a trio of top-three finishes in 2023, including a win at the Honda Classic, are among the most surprising absences for the weekend.
Canadian Corey Conners missed his first cut on TOUR since the Fortinet Championship in September 2022 after back-to-back rounds of 75.
Matt Kuchar, Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley, and Billy Horschel round out a group of notable TOUR veterans who failed to make the cut.
World No. 1 Jon Rahm also withdrew from the tournament on Friday due to illness.