Few have the experience of playing the Stadium Course as McIlroy and certainly not three of the players directly ahead of him on the leaderboard.

But there was Scottie Scheffler (No. 1), Rory McIlroy (No. 2) and Xander Schauffele (No. 3) standing on a tee box together in the second round of The Players Championship, giving the thousands of fans surrounding them at 17 a glimpse of what golf should be on a week-in-week-out basis.

Lucas Glover, Camilo Villegas and JJ Spaun share top spot in the tournament, with Rory McIlroy, Billy Horschel and three others just one shot behind, while defending champion Scottie Scheffler is thre